many remarks which I cant remember. A. F.* was so funny
coming on the train. "Lily Phelps* wrote me such [
such is double underlined ] a letter" she said. "How can
[ can is double underlined ] you leave home now with this
danger of bombardment:* ^think of^ a shell might
bursting
in your house !!" [two deleted words] "Do tell
Theodore"* said Aunt Annie with such a grin. "I had
thought of other reasons for staying at

[ Page 2 ]

home but that had not occurred to me." She told Mr. Aldrich*
of the warning and he said "Why I must say that's the time I should
want to leave home!" --

It is a nice day here, and we have just had our
breakfast and had Mrs. Leland Stanford pointed out by a pleasant
waiter. I was so glad to get your dear letter.
I had Miss Pike* on my mind ^a day or two ago^ but I forgot
her. I feel better today now that the start is over and [and
is double underlined ] the snow which struck in a good
deal, but I still wish that I were just coming back instead of
just going -- I hate to leave home more and more -- There
are those who are very cheerful and have put their many cares
behind them Mary and seem to have no cold

[ Page 3 ]

except a poor cough at very rare intervals, and they spoke of
fresh [cornbreads ?] at breakfast and seemed to think that
they would be very nice .. I telegraphed to Susy Travers*
who answered that she couldn't come to lunch but would be here at
eleven so I haven't been as far as [Aitkens ] yet -- With
best
love always
Sarah

[Upside down bottom left corner of p. 4, in
pen & deleted; the rest of the letter appears to be in
pencil ]

South Berwick
4th January 1896

Notes

8 January 1896: Annie Fields opens her "Diary
of
a West Indian Island Tour"; "On the 7th of Jan. 1896
we left Boston to join the ^steam^ yacht Hermione at
Georgia. The thermometer had been ten degrees below zero on
Monday but on Thursday night we reached Brunswick." As Annie
Fields, Jewett and the Aldriches, Thomas and Lilian, have been
traveling by train on the day this letter was written, the
composition date must be on one of the days of this train trip to
Georgia, which ended on 9 January. See below, the note on
Mrs. Leland Stanford.
In the next letter below, also dated 8 January,
Jewett uses stationary from the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York's
Madison Square, suggesting that she wrote this letter while
staying at that hotel. According to the Rockland County
Journal quoted below, Mrs. Leland Stanford probably was
staying at the Fifth Avenue Hotel a week later.

Lily Phelps: Elizabeth
Stuart
Phelps Ward (1844-1911) at birth was named Mary Gray
Phelps. After her mother's death, Phelps wrote under her
mother's name, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. At home and among
her friends, she was called Lily.

bombardment: While Cuba, where a rebellion was in
progress, was a possible destination of the Caribbean tour
the group was beginning, the context of this letter makes it seem
more likely that Lily Phelps is concerned about bad weather than
exposure to a military attack. The William
Steinway
Diary notes that in New York City on January 7, 1896, there
was "a bad icy snowstorm." Knowing whether this bad weather
extended as far south as Washington D.C. would help to establish
where this letter was composed. See below, the note on Mrs.
Leland Stanford.

Mr. Aldrich: The chronology of Annie Fields's Diary
of
a West Indian Island Tour indicates that the party
consisting of Jewett, Fields, Thomas and Lilian Aldrich and their
servant, Bridget, traveled by train from Boston, MA to Brunswick,
GA. during the first full week of January 1896.

Mrs. Leland Stanford: Wikipedia
says: "Jane Lathrop Stanford (August 25, 1828 - February 28,
1905) was a co-founder of Stanford University in 1885 (opened
1891) along with her husband, Leland Stanford, as a memorial to
their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who died in 1884 at the age
of 15. After her husband's death in 1893, she funded and operated
the university almost single-handedly until her death in 1905."
The fact that Jewett has seen Mrs. Stanford
provides clues that the letter may have been written from New York
City or Washington, D.C. The Rockland
County
Journal, (18 January 1896) p. 2, places Mrs. Stanford
in New York City in mid-January. while the San
Francisco Call 79: 57 (26 January 1896) p. 18, reports
on "Movements of People Who Are in the Swim": "Mrs. Leland
Stanford will leave Washington in a few days for this City."

Miss Pike: Miss Pike appears to be a local resident
of South Berwick, though this is not certain. If she is from
South Berwick, she may be Eugenia Pike (b. 1844), daughter of John
S. and Abba T. Pike (according to census
records). This Miss Pike apparently taught a term of
grammar school in South Berwick in 1860 (See Placenames of
South Berwick, p. 76). However, it appears there were
two women named Eugenia Pike in South Berwick, who may have
resided there while remaining unmarried in 1896. The younger
woman (born 1870) was the daughter of Edward B. and Susan A. Pike
of South Berwick (census
records). Both women had sisters born in South Berwick
as well, so there could have been yet other Miss Pikes in South
Berwick about whom the Jewett sisters might be concerned.

Aitkens: Aitken Son & Company was an upscale New
York department store at turn of the 20th century.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, Box 6, Folder 3, Letter
9. Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

[ 8 January 1896 ]* [Date
penciled
in another hand ]

Wednesday Morning

Dear Mary,

We shall probably be two or three days at
Brunswick as Mr. Pierce* has had to take his stormy way down the
coast so you can write once there and once to Nassau New
Providence Bahamas. Then if you do not hear from Mr. Talbot
B. Aldrich* 148 State St. just send your letters to his care at
any time

[ Page 2 ]

as he will forward them but Lilian* says he is going to let you
know as often as she telegraphs, which she means to do
often. I am going to send word to Talbot to send you a cable
code* so that you can use it in case you want to send a
telegram. I meant to get one in Boston.

[ Page 3 ]

-- We had a comfortable journey getting in on time and we met the
little snow storm at Sharon* so that there was no [unrecognized
word]. The Linnet & Lilian and [ Mrs Richardson written
over
words]* are so [rich ?] and full of welcomes.
I couldn't find out much from them about the Smith house except
that the [don ?] felt he

[ Page 4 ]

would go down shooting and he went into the house and made a nice
fire and when he came back the house was flat.* The Linnet
had been at the Player's Club* to dinner and came in so
pleasant and wanted a drink of water & Lilian thought it might
not be good water. I cant die young like Keats* says
the Linnet! and he was so funny with

[Incomplete]

Notes

8 January 1896: This letter is written on lined stationary
from the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Madison Square, New York, which is
printed up the left side of page 2. It appears in the
scanned copy from which this transcript has been made that Jewett
folded a page of stationary in half to produce the 4 existing
pages of this letter. That she folded it and obscured the
letterhead suggests that when she wrote the letter she had left
this hotel. This also suggests that in her earlier letter of
8 January, she was staying at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

Mr. Pierce: Henry L. Pierce. See notes for the
letter of January 8, 1896, Wednesday Evening.

Mr. Talbot B. Aldrich: Talbot is one of the twin sons
of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Aldrich. Among the close friends
of the Aldriches, Thomas was known as the Linnet. See Correspondents.

cable code: This is a code book for addressing and
"coding" telegrams to minimize their length. A contemporary
example is Low's
Pocket
Cable Code (1900). In Fields's diary
of the trip, she reports losing and recovering their code book on
about 19 January.

Sharon: Sharon, Massachusetts is about 17 miles
southwest of Boston.

Mrs. Richardson: It seems likely that this is Mrs. Henry
Hobson Richardson, born Julia Gorham Hayden (1837-1914). H.
H. Richardson (September 29, 1838 – April 27, 1886) was a
prominent New York architect "who designed buildings in Albany,
Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and other
cities. The style he popularized is named for him: Richardsonian
Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright,
Richardson is one of 'the recognized trinity of American
architecture'." He almost certainly would have become known
to Jewett through Sarah Wyman Whitman and Annie Fields.
Whitman worked with him on Boston's Trinity Church, 1872-7.
Fields was a member, and their much admired mutual acquaintance,
Phillips Brooks, was rector. Wikipedia notes: "Despite an
enormous income for an architect of his day, his "reckless
disregard for financial order" meant that he died deeply in debt,
leaving little to his widow and six children."
Melissa Homestead, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, has confirmed the likelihood of this
identification by working out that the Richardsons' son, Henry
Hyslop Richardson, a real estate broker, came into Jewett's family
in 1906, when he married Elizabeth Lejée Perry, daughter of
Charles French Perry and Georgiana West Graves. Charles
Perry was a distant cousin of the Jewett sisters, on their
mother's side. Homestead notes that after the death of Jewett's
nephew, Theodore Jewett Eastman, Elizabeth Perry Richardson "had
some responsibility for Jewett’s literary estate. "

the Smith house: This tantalizing story of a house
fire has not been documented. Assistance is welcome.

Player's Club: Edwin Booth
(1833 - June 7, 1893), actor and brother of John Wilkes Booth, was
a founding member of the New
York
Players Club in 1888. A friend of Fields and Jewett,
Booth had introduced them to the club in 1891. See Jewett's
November
-
December 1891 letter to T. B. Aldrich.

Keats: Wikipedia
says: "John Keats ..(31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an
English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the
second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and
Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work having been in publication
for only four years before his death."

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, Box 6, Folder 3, Letter
10. Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

[9
January 1896 ] [Date penciled in another hand ]

Somewhere in North Carolina
Thursday morning

I have had a pretty good sleep for a sleeping car night and a
proper breakfast with much fun and conversation from Mr. T. B.
Aldrich, and now I must begin another letter to you{.} I
managed to get the opposite section to the one A. F. and I had
engaged together and that makes all the difference in the world,
besides which Lilian* overcame the fears of the darkey porter
about our freezing and got the heat turned off. She and T.B.
are both so nice as they can possibly be and old Bridget is with
us instead of already on the yacht* as I supposed{,}

[ Page 2 ]

a dear old-fashioned woman, so ready to help everybody. This
is all I can think of to say about today except that A. F. is in
great spirits and we don't get to Brunswick until seven o'clock
instead at [four ?] as I supposed. We are likely to
have to wait for Mr. Pierce* -- yesterday in New York we had a
call from Charlie, Mary, looking so pleasant and with
sincere wishes that he could go with us, and then Susy Travers
came & Miss Appleton and Miss Appleton took me off to do my
errands which I did in haste & much tiredness, it being a poor
morning to your sister's spirit!! I got Theresa's matters
settled* and

[ Page 3 ]

found Mr. Keet the Forum editor a funny little man like his
name.* I got your trimming Mary, and I hoped it would be
what you wanted [--] it was charming by day and must be
still prettier by night. I waked up in the night with a fuss
because I hadn't looked longer for something all made but these
were big things to go outside the waist and you would have had to
take off all your pretty trimming to manage them. This was
exactly what I had in mind at first and i hope I didn't show poor
judgment. I dont see why Miss Gray couldn't take the little
thing Miss [Cameron ?]* made and put two rows of this
^together^ down the front on the chiffon and

[ Page 4 ]

then make a [stiffer collar ?] to put a [band round ?]
the neck joining behind. Carrie will know how to manage
it. You might put some on the sleeves above the [unrecognized
word] if you think best. It came from Aitken's.*
I went home to lunch with Miss Appleton &
Susy and had a dear little time. They brought A. F. a
wonderful box of orchids & daffies and a lot of candy to me,
all of which we wished openly to send home to you.
It is warmer now [ that storm ? unreadable
word ] and quite southern already. It is all alike
out of the windows [a vertical mark, possibly a comma]
after you get in the level country

[ Up the left margin and then
in the top margin of page 1]

with the pines and the darkey cabins. I have write as often
as I could{.} Just now there is not much to say. Though we happen
[now at this last station and got the air ?]. I hope
Stubby* [is ?] in spirits
love to all from Sarah

Notes

Mr. T. B. Aldrich ... A. F. ... Lilian ... Bridget ...
the yacht ... Mr. Pierce: Annie Fields, Thomas Bailey
and Lilian Aldrich, along with Jewett made up the company
traveling to join Henry L. Pierce for a West Indian Island cruise
aboard Pierce's steam yacht, the Hermione. Bridget
is an Aldrich family servant. See
Correspondents.

Theresa's matters settled: Jewett appears to be
handling business for Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc. See Correspondents.
Jewett's translation of a portion of
Blanc's "The Condition of Woman in America" appeared in The
Forum XXI (March 1896), 1-20.

Mr. Keet the Forum editor: Wikipedia
says: "The Forum was an American magazine founded in
1885 by Isaac Rice. It existed under various names and formats
until it ceased publication in 1950. Published in New York, its
most notable incarnation (1885 until 1902) was symposium based.
Articles from prominent guest authors debated all sides of a
contemporary political or social issue - often across several
issues and in some cases, several decades. At other times, it
published fiction and poetry, and published articles produced by
staff columnists in a ‘news roundup’ format." Alfred Ernest
Keet was editor 1895–97. Keet was the author of Stephen
Crane: In Memoriam (c. 1900).

Miss Gray ... Miss [Cameron ?]:
Presumably these women were dress-makers, but they have not yet
been identified.

Aitken's: Aitken Son & Company was an upscale New
York department store at turn of the 20th century. The Metropolitan
Museum
of Art holds two items sold by Aitken Son & Company, New
York importer and dry goods retailer.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, Box 6, Folder 3, Letter
12. Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

[10
January 1896 ]*
Oglethorpe Hotel*
Friday
Morning

Dear Mary,

After I wrote you yesterday we changed cars at
Waycross* and waited an hour or more and took a walk to view the
place and saw a meetin' house that was bent in the middle and
tilted over by a little tornado last summer. Then we came on
here two hours journey and were pretty tired, but this morning as
we went to breakfast Old Bridget came running and

[ Page 2]

said that the Hermione was in. I had heard a gun but I
didn't expect her for a season. Mr. Pierce came up to
breakfast presently very smiling, and had had an excellent
voyage. We are not going to start until until tomorrow as
brasses are to be rubbed and awnings put up [unreadable marks].
Everything
being close reefed as one may say to come round the Cape. It
is a delicious day. There are those who have taken a
prancing walk but I stayed in to wash my wig and dry it by a
little light wood fire while I could. I hope for a letter
from you tomorrow morning.
With so much
love from Sarah

[ Up the left margin page 1]

Carrie, I may start the worsted work this day.

Notes

10 January 1896: In another hand, this letter is
dated 7 or 17 January, 1896. The chronology of Annie
Fields's Diary
of
a West Indian Island Tour indicates that the party
consisting of Jewett, Fields, Thomas and Lilian Aldrich and their
servant, Bridget, arrived in Brunswick, GA on the evening of
Thursday 9 January. Jewett wrote this letter the next day on
Friday 10 January.

Oglethorpe Hotel: The party stayed at the Oglethorpe
Hotel, then the premier hotel in the town.

Oglethorpe Hotel, Brunswick GA
Courtesy of the Glynn County Public Library, Brunswick.

Hermione ... Mr. Pierce: Wikipedia says: "Henry
Lillie Pierce (August 23, 1825 - December 17,
1896).... pursued classical studies, attended the
[Massachusetts] State normal school at Bridgewater, and engaged in
manufacturing. He was elected a member of the Massachusetts House
of Representatives, a member of the Boston Board of Aldermen, and
served as Mayor of Boston. Pierce was elected as a Republican to
the Forty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death
of William Whiting. He was reelected to the Forty-fourth Congress
and served from December 1, 1873, to March 3, 1877. He declined to
be a candidate for renomination, was again Mayor of Boston in
1878, and died in that city on December 17, 1896. " He
eventually became the owner of the Baker Chocolate Company.

The following description of the Hermione appears in The
Marine Engineer (July 1, 1891) p. 206. The yacht
was built in Paisley, Scotland.

According to "The Yacht
Photography of J. S. Johnston," the Hermione
was sold to the United States Navy in 1898, converted into a
gunboat, and renamed the Hawk; she then provided service in the
Spanish-American War.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the
archive of Historic New England, Jewett Family Papers, Box 6,
Folder 3, Letter 2. Transcribed and annotated by Terry
Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

Saturday Morning
[ 11 January 1896
]*

Today we are going to the Jekyll Island ^Club^*
to luncheon and come back to the yacht in the afternoon and begin
our residence -- and start early in the morning for Jupiter Inlet*
(or Palm Beach where the new Flagler Hotels are & then I can
write again. Mr. Pierce & Lilian & I took a long
drive yesterday afternoon down the bay side (or marsh side) on a
shell road & back through the woods. It was cold enough
to be glad to wear a cloak but bright & nice. I send
Stubs* a paper which will make him laugh.
Good bye with much love
Sarah.

Notes

11 January 1896: This postcard is postmarked 13
January, but Jewett has dated it Saturday, the day of the Jekyll
Island excursion, which was 11 January.

Jekyll Island Club: In 1896, Jekyll Island,
Georgia was a private club, established in the 1880s, where the
world's richest people built houses or rented rooms in
winter. Only members and their guests could stay on the
island. See Fields's Diary
of
a West Indian Island Tour for details.

Jupiter Inlet ... Palm Beach ... new Flagler Hotels:
Presumably, the Hermione sailed to the area of the Jupiter
Inlet Lighthouse, about 20 miles north of the current city
of Palm Beach, FL.Wikipedia
says: "Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 - May 20, 1913) was
an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil. He was
also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of
Florida and founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway.
He is known as the father of both Miami and Palm Beach,
Florida....
"Flagler completed the 1,100-room Royal
Poinciana Hotel on the shores of Lake Worth in Palm Beach and
extended his railroad to its service town, West Palm Beach, by
1894, founding Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. The Royal Poinciana
Hotel was at the time the largest wooden structure in the world.
Two years later, Flagler built the Palm Beach Inn (renamed
Breakers Hotel Complex in 1901) overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in
Palm Beach."
See Fields's Diary
of
a West Indian Island Tour for details.

The manuscript of this card is held in the archive of Historic New
England, Jewett Family Papers, Box 6, Folder 3, Letter 3.
Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

[Begin letterhead]

S. Y. Hermione

[End letterhead]

Nassau
Wednesday 16th
Jan. [1896]

Dear Mary,

Luckily the first mail boat of the season is
going over to Jupiter Inlet* today where it strikes the Florida
train and so after the telegram it wont be many days before you
receive this letter, much quicker than if it went way up to New
York by sea. I wrote you last from Brunswick* just after we
came on board Friday night, and we started out of the harbor very
early and in a calm and collected frame of mind,

[ Page 2 ]

but outside there was an old sea and your poor Sister with others
of the ships company were very seasick all that day and were
better but very low all that night and in the morning when we got
to Jupiter Inlet where we thought we would go to shore and come to
life again there was such a sea running that the captain thought
we had better not try it as he couldn't get over the bar just then
and it was too rough for the boats & ^we were^ four miles
off. (a heaving tumbling sea and your poor sister on it and
no old sea dog like a pretty Theodore who sailed the Norma.*
Lilian was much

[ Page 3 ]

sicker than I poor thing and A. F. and T. B. A. were
gloomy.* Then we struck across the Gulf stream* and by night
we were much better off and yesterday morning here we were in this
nice harbor and summer breezes blowing and the sea water the
loveliest colour and coloured persons in boats a fetching sponges
and shells and every thing much as we expected. About Noon
we went ashore and found the little [missing word?]
much more delightful than we had looked for: so foreign, so gay
and quaint with an English touch about it too: as when one saw a
thin clergyman proceeding down the street as if he were in
Canterbury.

[ Page 4 ]

We were too late for all but the last of the
market but it was too funny with those elderly old darkies &
their few oranges and pieces of sugar cane and there was one old
turkey stepping about with a string to him as if he were taking a
little pleasure before being sold. And people carrying
everything on their heads and wearing turbans and little buildings
with high roofs and high walls with pretty gateways and two or
three nice old church towers. Then we went to the Victoria
Hotel* and ate a splendid luncheon with large shore appetites with
remarks from Mr. T. B. Aldrich for extra flavoring. After
that we went to drive way up the island and saw cocoanut trees and
every kind of green {.}

[Up the left side of the first page]

if we have any more such rough weather now or if we do we shall
not mind it as we did coming right out to sea. Mrs. Aldrich
sends her love to you both and so does A. F. and so do I. I
think of you both & Stubby* so often and got him some stamps
yesterday & more today but I shall write again before we [sail
?]. Sarah

Notes

Jupiter Inlet: About 20 miles north of the
current city of Palm Beach, FL.

Brunswick: The party boarded the Hermione in
Brunswick, GA.

Theodore who sailed the Norma: It seems likely that
Jewett is referring to Theodore Vail (1845-1920), owner of a steam
yacht, The Norma. Vail was president of the
Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company of New York.
According to Roger Austen in Genteel
Pagan (1995), Vail invited the poet Charles Warren
Stoddard on a New England coastal cruise (115-6). How Jewett
was acquainted with Vail and what she would have expected her
sisters to know remains a mystery. According to Wikipedia,
Vail was a member of the Jekyll Island Club. Perhaps Jewett
met him there during her party's brief visit before their
departure from Brunswick on the Hermione.

The manuscript of this letter is held by Historic New England in
"Sarah Orne Jewett Personal Correspondence," Box 6.3 Letter
7. Transcription and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe
College.

SOJ to Sarah Wyman Whitman

S. Y. Hermione, Nassau, Wednesday, 16
January [1896]

And I a writing to a friend on a pleasant
summer morning and wishing that we could have a word together. Two
days ago I was ready to change places with the coldest old
hurdy-gurdy woman that ever sat at the State House corner, and
nobody cared whether the Gulf Stream* was blue or whether it was
pink, but yesterday I waked up in Nassau harbour and all was well
and we went ashore to luncheon and life

[2]

seemed to begin with flying colours. It is a charming little town
along the waterside with its little square houses with four-sided
thatched roofs and down the side lanes come women [carrying corrected]
things on their heads -- firewood and large baskets 'of shapes,'
and an idle man-person on a small donkey and little black darkeys,
oh, very black ones! with outgrown white garments ---- I
think it is a little like Italy but I suppose it is really more
like Spain. And I who write you have seen cocoanuts a growing and
as we drove along the bushy

[3]

roads, A. F.* did so squeak aloud for joy at every new bush and
tree and tame flower a-growing wild. And when I found how easy it
is to get here all the way by rail to Florida and across from Palm
Beach (Jupiter Inlet) in a day,* I wonder that more people dont
come to this charming Victoria Hotel among its great silk-cotton
trees* instead of staying in all the dull little sandy southern
towns of the Carolinas.* You would see such pictures. I love your
Bermuda sketches* a thousand times more than ever now -----

Things are going pretty well.

[4]

I came away with a pretty heavy heart darling and I still have
that sense of distance which tires ones spirits, but distance is
its own cure and remedy, and all but ones swiftest thoughts at
last stop flying back, and you get the habit of living where you
are. -- Who was it said that you never get to a place until a day
after you come, nor leave it until a day after you go?*

(I send you my love dear and so does A. F. I'm [inserted
between lines] ^She's at the other end of the ship^{.} sure
-- and Mrs. Aldrich asked me when I wrote to give a message from
her.* The yacht is very nice and big and there is a high
quarter deck

[18 circled, probably in another hand, appears in the bottom
left corner of this page.]

[ Written up the left margin of page 1]

where I sit and get cool in the salt breeze This is well

[ Written down from left to right margin
in the top margin of page 1 ]

for one who left her native Berwick at 12 below zero!

Yours ever SOJ

We are going to be here a few days and I may

[ Written up the left margin of page 2
]

write again simply because I haven't managed to say

[ Written up the right margin of page 2
]

anything in this letter.

Notes

hurdy-gurdy woman ... State House corner ... Gulf Stream: A
hurdy-gurdy may be a barrel organ or other similar instrument
often carried and played in the street. State House corner in
Boston faces the Boston Common. The Gulf Stream is a warm ocean
current originating in the Gulf of Mexico and flowing into the
North Atlantic. Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas.

by rail to Florida and across from Palm Beach (Jupiter Inlet)
in a day: On the 1896 trip during which this letter
was written, Jewett and Fields along with Thomas Bailey and Lilian
Aldrich and their servant, Bridget, to Brunswick, GA, where they
joined Henry L. Pierce on his steam yacht, the Hermione.
They
then steamed to Palm Beach and on to Nassau. However, by
this date, it was possible to travel by a rail line built and
owned by Henry Flagler to his hotels in Palm Beach. On the
return journey, Jewett and friends leave the Hermione at
Palm Beach, where they recover for a few days, before traveling by
rail to St. Augustine and eventually home.

Victoria Hotel among its great silk-cotton trees: The
Royal Victoria Hotel was the main tourist hotel in Nassau.
In her diary
of
the tour, Annie Fields describes dining at the hotel.
Ceiba petrandra or Kapok, in the American tropics, is often
called the silk cotton tree.

dull little sandy southern towns of the Carolinas: In
1888, Jewett and Fields stayed a week or two in the areas of Aiken
and Beaufort, South Carolina, after a couple weeks in St.
Augustine, FL.

New York, March 24, 1892.
I am writing from New York on my way to
Bermuda for two weeks. . . . I take with me the munitions of
war, oil paints, pastel, and even water colours, for who shall
say of what complexion the emotions of Bermuda will be?

Bermuda, April 12, 1892.
It is a little world all by itself and
a world of colour, as its main attribute. Such a Sea, such a
Sky! A dream of beauty different from anything else and I can
see amazing pictures to be painted at every turn. . . .
The local incident; the white houses
built from the coral of which the island itself is made, . . .
the negroes and their picturesque methods, the acres of lilies
all in fragrant bloom, these things one can only glance at in
writing, but some day I will tell you a pretty chapter of
geography and history made out of this strange island in the
sea, so lovely and so serene.

On Easter (April 17), Whitman wrote to Mrs. Bigelow Lawrence:

I am returning from the enchanted island,... and O,
what an island it is! No one can say too much of the color and
fragrance of it, -- the sea, which is mixed of violet and
turquoise, the sky, radiant with trailing clouds, everywhere
beauty, and with it all a sort of strange romance, -- set in
such loneliness, yet smiling and rosy as the dawn. It made me
feel things that cannot be expressed in words.

Whitman's Bermuda sketches have proven difficult to locate
and reprint. Below is a sample of her painting.

Who was it said that you never get to a place until a day after
you come, nor leave it until a day after you go: Jewett uses
this saying in "William's Wedding," section 3, Atlantic
Monthly (106:33-40), July 1910.

point – and lovely things growing altogether so that A. F.* was
pointing like a young one -- you know how she likes to see
strange trees and bushes! There never was such a time in the
world and we brought home large boughs of nearly everything,
beside as many roses as we could carry, only a little darkey
garden. (price a shillun.) You look along the little bowery roads
with ^little^ thatched houses that have four sided roofs.
and of ^down^ the side [deleted word] lanes come
women with bundles on their heads and a big man on a little
donkey. I keep thinking that it is something like Italy but
I suppose it is more like Spain. We are going ashore every
day to

[ Page 2 ]

lunch. and we shall be here some days longer which we all
like very well. Something is wrong with the ships water
pipes and this morning clever ebony countenances of useful
plumbers and carpenters passed by my high [nigh?] porthole in a
crowded boat. T. B. sputters because the Alabama and other
commerce destroyers were fitted out here in war time and was so
funny with his unexpectedly great anger at this late day. I
must hurry and read up about Nassau for I know less I find than
about almost any other island. I am arrayed in my denim
dress but finding it heavy! Tell John that I saw the
Talisman* the yacht he heard about – not nearly as large as this,
lying up to the wharf at Brunswick* & they said she had a hard
time out at sea. but so far the Hermione is all right.
She is being steady. I doubt

Alabama: Presumably, Aldrich refers to the CSS
Alabama, "a screw sloop-of-war built in 1862 for the
Confederate States Navy at Birkenhead on the River Mersey opposite
Liverpool, England by John Laird Sons and Company. Alabama
served as a successful commerce raider, attacking Union merchant
and naval ships over the course of her two-year career, during
which she never docked at a Southern port. She was sunk in June
1864 by USS Kearsarge at the Battle of Cherbourg outside
the port of Cherbourg, France" (Wikipedia). Whether the Alabama
used Nassau as a port is not clear, but other Confederate navy
ships apparently did, e.g. the CSS
Florida.

Talisman: The 1896
American
Yacht list includes The Talisman, a steam yacht
owned by Capt. George E. Crawson of Newark, NJ (48).

Brunswick: The party boarded the Hermione in
Brunswick, GA.

The manuscript of this fragment is held by Historic New England in
"Sarah Orne Jewett Personal Correspondence," Box 6 Letter 1.
Transcription and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to sisters, Carrie Jewett Eastman & Mary Rice Jewett

[Begin letterhead]

Steam Yacht Hermione

[End letterhead]

Jany 19th [1896] Sunday Morning
Nassau

Dear Mary & Carrie

I have finished a breakfast of the best
[fishballs ? ]* as if it were Sunday morning at home and
it seems a good moment to begin a letter. We hoped that we
should get a mail yesterday but it seems that the Florida steamer
won't bring the mails until February -- and so we are waiting
until tomorrow when the regular steamer comes from New York.
I suppose that I shall have to post this before I hear from
you. We think now that we shall set sail in the afternoon as
soon as we get the mail so as to be off San Salvador next
morning. Mr. Pierce*

[2]

told me that he wanted to reach Jamaica by February but we have
long runs all the way to get there. We have had a very nice
time in Nassau and it is a great thing to really get acquainted
with a little foreign town. Yesterday was the first day that
we didn't go ashore to luncheon and I stayed on board until
evening, most of the time reading Mr. Midshipman Easy* on the
hurricane deck where there was a delightful breeze and I was
always stopping to see what was going on. We have come close
to the wharves to get our coal and water in. (Lilian wont be made
fast because rottens would like to step aboard on
the cables!)* We are right beside the schooner Nathan K.
Cobb of Rockland* which put in leaking and has had

[3]

to unload her cargo, and the darkies were busy all day with a
tackle and fall* hoisting up sugar bags out of the hold and
singing a chanty which [seemed written over another word]
new every time. There was such a funny shift in its few
notes. I saw the Capins* wife sitting on the deck looking
quite lonesome. In the evening Mr. Pierce and Lilian and I
went ashore and drove out to a village called Grantstown* where
they have a great Saturday night market [--] such poor little
wares all laid out in ha'pennyworths and they are chaffering* and
you can see into the cabins and every body has a little fire of
pitch pine twigs to show their goods. It was a lovely
night. The steamy south wind had changed to a northerly one
-- and it has been cool and

[4]

fresh so that we could wear thicker clothes
again.

One day at the hotel someone [ written
over she?] came up to me and said that she knew
my friend Miss Mary Longfellow of Portland and had seen you,
Mary, at Aunt [Helen's ?],* as their Miss Crain
of Portland -- who has come down to spend the winter. I
have seen her several times since and so has A. F. and we find
her pleasant to talk to and very knowing about Nassau
things. She says she knows Jane Sewell too, so you must
tell Jennie that I've seen her. I must see her tomorrow
when we expect to go ashore for a last [send ?] up and
down Bay Street. Today we went to church at the
Cathedral, all but T. B. -- whom we pulled up by the roots
toward evening and took for a walk on land. The church
was quite big and grand with a lot of mural tablets and black
and white pews mixed all together. There were two
clergymen with

[Up the right margin of p. 1]

[Cambridge ?] hoods* who looked delicate as if
they had come out for their

[Down from left margin in the top
margin of p. 1]

health and there was good singing and a proper
sermon. The black troops in the garrison were
marched in just before us in fine uniforms of white
and red. You ought to have seen Bridget going in
alone an hour before we did

[ Up the left margin of p. 2]

to mass, with the rowers and the Capin steering her!* I have
had

[ Up the left margin of p. 3]

a very nice time in Nassau and I hope we shall come back again.
Ever

[Down from left margin in the top margin of p.
3]

so much love to all Your Sarah.

Notes

fishballs: A New
England Recipes web page says: "The American Frugal
Housewife published in Boston in 1833 has the earliest
recipe for fish and mashed potatoes. 'There is no way of preparing
salt fish for breakfast, so nice as to roll it up in little balls,
after it is mixed with mashed potatoes; dip it into an egg, and
fry it brown.' Fish balls were synonymous with New England Sunday
breakfast. However, not all cooks served it at Sunday breakfast."

San Salvador ... Mr. Pierce: San Salvador Island is
a district of the Bahamas. The island would be on the route
to Jamaica, the next main stop Mr. Henry Lillie Pierce
(1825-1896), owner of the Hermione, has planned.
Pierce also was owner of the Baker Chocolate Company.

Mr. Midshipman Easy: Wikipedia says: "Mr.
Midshipman Easy is an 1836 novel by Frederick Marryat, a
retired captain in the Royal Navy. The novel is set during the
Napoleonic Wars, in which Marryat himself served with
distinction."

Lilian ... rottens: Along with Pierce, the touring
party on the Hermione included Thomas Bailey Aldrich, his
wife Lilian, and their Irish servant, Bridget, as well as Sarah
Orne Jewett and Annie Adams Fields. If the word Jewett wrote
is, indeed, "rottens," it is difficult to know quite what Lilian
meant by fearing they would board the yacht via the cables were
they to tie up to the dock. Perhaps she feared rats, but
more likely criminals.

the schooner Nathan K. Cobb of Rockland: Probably
Jewett meant the Nathan F. Cobb, of which Wikipedia
says: "The Nathan F. Cobb was a three-masted schooner
named after the shipbuilder and founder of Cobb’s Salvaging
Company whose many rescues of stranded ships helped lead to the
formation of the United States Life-Saving Service. Despite its
namesake's history of shipwreck rescues, the Nathan F. Cobb
capsized in heavy seas on 1 December 1896 en route from Brunswick,
Georgia to New York with a cargo of timber and cross
ties.... The Nathan F. Cobb of Rockland, Maine was a
three-masted, square rigged schooner constructed in
1890...." Cobb (b. 1797) came from Eastham, Massachusetts on
Cape Cod.

tackle and fall: A system of pulleys and ropes for
lifting and lowering heavy objects.

Capins wife: The names of the captain and crew members of
the Nathan F. Cobb are not yet known. Assistance is
welcome.

Grantstown: Grants Town was a village south of
Nassau.

chaffering: Bargaining.

Miss Mary Longfellow of Portland ... Aunt [Helen's ?]
... as their Miss Crain of Portland ... A. F. ... Jane
Sewell ... tell Jennie that I've seen her: Richard
Cary says "Alice Mary Longfellow (1850-1928), daughter of the
poet, was a friend of long standing. Jewett often visited with her
in the summer at Mouse Island in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where
Miss Longfellow annually filled in the season with a vigorous
regime of walking, rowing, and sailing."
Helen Gilman was Jewett's much admired
great-aunt. See Correspondents.
Miss Crain of Portland has not been
identified. It is possible that she has married since
meeting Mary in Portland, but Jewett seems unclear about
this. Assistance is welcome.
A. F. is Annie Fields.
Jane Sewell, according to The Placenames of
South Berwick (75), was a resident of South Berwick, ME and,
therefore, a neighbor of the Jewett family. More information
is welcome.
Jennie also is unidentified, but it is possible
that she is Jane Sewell, and that Jewett wishes to convey
a greeting to her.

Bay Street: A main thoroughfare along the north
coast of Nassau, facing Paradise Island.

the Cathedral ... T. B. ... mural tablets and black and white
pews mixed all together ... two clergymen ...[Cambridge ?]
hoods: See Field's "Diary
of
a West Indian Island Tour" for her account of Nassau.
The English Church in Nassau would have been Christ Church
Cathedral. The church's website notes that no one is buried
in the cathedral, that the inscriptions are plaques rather than
markers.
T. B. is Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
It is uncertain what Jewett means by noting
that "black and white pews" were mixed all together. Perhaps
she means that, unlike in many churches she would attend outside
New England, black and white people were integrated in the
congregation. If so, it also is unclear to what degree they
were integrated. Was each pew occupied only by people of one
color? Or were whites and people of color free to sit
wherever they chose? In her 2 February letter from
Mandeville, Jamaica, Jewett says that church there was much like
in Yorkshire, except for "all the decent black people scattered
in." More information is welcome.
The identities of the presiding clergy are
uncertain. The Right Reverend Edward Townson Churton,
educated at Oxford, was Bishop at Nassau 1886-1900. More
information is welcome.
The clergy wearing Cambridge hoods, if Jewett's
description is precise, would indicate that they were graduates of
Cambridge university and that they wore their academic hoods with
their gowns during worship. More information about this is
welcome.

Bridget ... mass: The Aldriches brought with them,
Bridget, an Irish Catholic, as a maid and general servant.
The names of the crew of the Hermione also remain
unknown. Further information is welcome.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, MS014.02.01.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to sisters, Carrie Jewett Eastman & Mary Rice
Jewett

[Begin letterhead]

Steam Yacht Hermione

[End letterhead]

Port au Prince Hayti
25 Jany 1896

Dear Sisters,

I was sorry that I sent such a poor letter from
Inagua* but there seemed to be scant time to do that and take it
ashore [but written over another word] I found out
afterward that I need not have hurried. You will now get
further particulars with a one legged pen* of A. F.'s and hear
that we were much interested with poor Inagua which seemed to have
neither 'taters nor poor [ rabbit ? ] either! There
had been a great enterprise of salt-making two or three square
miles of flats all dyked and put in working order with salt houses
and wheels and dams & channels and after they had made good
salt a while like Turk's Island* there came a great cloudburst and
all the mud, red and

[2]

sticky-looking worked up through, and the whole thing was left to
go to ruin. The Consul's father was one of the men ^but died
long ago^ and he and his old [unrecognized word] mother and
the children have lived on but the little town went to pieces like
the salt works because every body went away, and there lies Inagua
in the hot sun low and hungry looking. [deleted word] All
the little scrub oaks and things were quite forlorn ^looking^ beside
^after^ Nassau which was as bushy as Ireland. We had a nice
long drive (though pretty hot and glaring) across the great salt
plain where we saw snipe* feeding, and best of all, the most
splendid flock of flamingos off on the flats, as bright as
geranium flowers at that distance and the Consul said that they
were tall enough to touch the top of his head with their
beaks. I wish that Stubby* could have seen & shot
one. I tried

[3]

to see if I could get an egg to bring him for his collection, [but
written over another word] I couldn't. There must
have been two or three hundred of them. We had the Consul
& his mother & sister to dinner, and in the night we set
sail over a rough piece of sea. From Inagua we could just
see the mountains of Cuba, but I suppose that is all we are likely
to see, and we turned south toward Haity [sic] and
got into the most lovely bay among the mountains,* at sunrise --
with a queer little town like a geography picture -- high
mountains behind and a long row of cocoa palms. The Republic
of
Hayti presently came off in a boat -- a number of persons
who were dignitaries of that port the chief among them being a old
black person like Charles [Tash ? ]* with a silk hat much
too large for him so that it went down over his shoulders like a
cape. Mr. Pierce and I were on the upper deck and I hopped
up to see the boat

[4]

load thinking that they wanted to sell conch shells & things
and my eye met this scene of splendor & I got Mr. Pierce and I
thought he never would stop laughing: dont you know how Uncle
William* would laugh sometimes until he cried? It had its
affecting side too, but of all the majesty I ever saw! and that
great hat! We stayed there all day but didn't go
ashore. The Captain went off in a little boat and shot a
pelican, and brought him aboard to our great interest. We
saw them flying and fishing all down the shore and it was a great
pleasure, nice picture-book pelicans, Carrie and Mary!
[Deleted word] Your sister tried to draw
a little one but could not stop.... There was another big
yacht in the bay & we left it there. We had our dinner
and then went up on the Captain's bridge and stayed until
bedtime. It was a lovely night perfectly quiet and still,
and we sailed at nine o'clock and got here at seven this
morning. The mountains are beautiful and the harbor full of
shipping. There is a big steamer unloading

[Up the left margin of page 1]

pelters* that kick and swing in the air. Mary would know
them all again and some behave so well poor things.

[Down from left margin in the top margin of p.
1]

A. F. who has been rather upset and poorly of late, is nicely this
morning and in great feather. Mr. Pierce says we shall go
ashore a week in Jamaica & go up among the mountains &
stay

[Up the left margin of page 2]

perhaps. Lillian [spelling varies] who is much sicker
than anybody is also well

[Down from left margin in the top margin of p.
2]

again.* And I have not been very badly off except that first
day. Now we are away from that

[Up the left margin of page 3]

great Atlantic swell that knocks us about we shall be more
comfortable.

Notes

Inagua: Inagua is the southernmost part of the
Bahamas, consisting of two islands: Great Inagua and Little
Inagua.

one legged pen of A. F.'s: A. F. is Annie
Fields. The phrase "one legged pen" occurs several times in
documents available on the Internet, but what distinguishes it
from any other pen is not clear. The phrase does not appear
in the Oxford English Dictionary. Examining the
image of the manuscript shows no obvious difference between this
and other letters Jewett mailed from the Hermione.
Perhaps the phrase refers to the writer rather than the pen?

enterprise of salt-making ... like Turk's Island:
See Fields "Diary of a West Indian Islands Tour" entry for January
24, for her account of visiting the salt works at
Inagua. Though the production of sea salt on Inagua had
failed by 1896, the Morton Salt Company now provides Inagua's main
industry, with a large solar salt operation. The Turks &
Caicos Islands had long been a source of salt in the Caribbean,
from the 1600s to the present.

snipe ... flock of flamingos: Snipes are small
wading birds, of which there are many varieties. Wikipedia
says of Inagua: "There is a large bird sanctuary in the centre of
the island with a population of more than 80,000 West Indian
flamingoes and many other bird species....

lovely bay among the mountains: According to Fields's
diary, this bay was at Môle-Saint-Nicolas, on the northwest
coast of Haiti. Wikipedia
says: "Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas landed
at the site of what is now Môle-Saint-Nicolas on December 6, 1492.
The town received its present name after France gained control of
the western part of Hispaniola in 1697." Wikipedia notes
that the French began to occupy the area beginning in 1625.

old black person like Charles [Tash ? ]:
The
identify of Charles Tash is unknown. Assistance is welcome.

Uncle William: Jewett's Uncle William Jewett died in
1887.

pelters: This word occurs several times in Jewett's
writings, and its meanings often are elusive. She seems here
to refer to animals with pelts, but it is hard to imagine a
ship-load of live, fur-bearing animals arriving in a Caribbean
port. Could she refer to sheep?

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, MS014.02.01. Transcription and
notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Louisa Loring Dresel

Steam Yacht Hermione, Kingston, Jamaica,
January 30, 1896*

Dear Loulie, -- I was so glad to get your
letter today, and so was Mrs. Fields.* We are having a very much
better time as we go on, for A. F. is better and I, too, and I
find Jamaica a most enchantingly beautiful country. My fellow
travellers say that Ceylon* is not a bit more beautiful. We have
been a week in Nassau, where I wrote you, and then came down
through the Bahamas, stopping only at Inagua, a strange lonely
island which I must tell you about some day, with its wild marshes
and a huge flock of flamingos, like all your best red paints spilt
on the shining mud. There had once been square miles of salt works
which were ruined by a tornado, and now the flamingos blow about
there like flames. Then we went to Hayti, which was oh, so funny
with its pomp of darkeys. Port au Prince was quite an awful scene
of thriftlessness and silly pretense* -- but one or two little
Haytian harbours and the high green coast were most lovely. And
then Jamaica, with all its new trees and flowers, and its coolies,
Loulie! with their bangles and turbans and strange eyes. You would
like Jamaica immensely.

Your news of the bicycle is very
entertaining. you will be cutting by a slow-footed friend any day
after I get back. I think it is so good for you, -- one needs a
serious reason for getting out of doors sometimes, and a bicycle
is a very serious reason indeed. The roads are so fine here,
winding and looping along the sides of the hills as they do in
Switzerland, -- fine English-made roads, -- and you look up to the
great mountains, and down to the blue sea.

I am writing in a hurry to catch a mail,
and I send ever so much love to you and to dear Mrs. Dresel, and I
know A. F. sends her love too.

You will find this an old date, dear
Loulie, but the letter was overlooked when our last mail was sent
ashore, and there hasn't been one since, this being the 19th of
February! We are on our way to Nassau now, expecting to reach
there in a few days. We got into a port way down in Porto Rico,
and after they had collected all the fees they told us if we went
on to St. Thomas (where all our letters were!), or to any of the
Windward Islands upon which our hearts were set, we should have to
go through a long quarantine!* So we turned meekly around and came
back all our long way, but we have seen a good many islands and
many rough seas and I feel more resigned now than I did at first.
We are sure to be at home in two or three weeks now if all goes
well. I think this is a more important postscript than letter!

Notes

1896: Fields dates this letter in 1899, but clearly
it refers to their 1896 Caribbean tour on the Hermione.

Ceylon: In 1894-5, Thomas Bailey and Lilian Aldrich
traveled to the far east, visiting Ceylon (Sri Lanka) along with
Japan, China, India and Egypt. See The Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
Chapter 7, "Indian Summer Days."

pretense: Annie Fields observes, in her journal of the 1896 Caribbean tour, that
she found Port au Prince perhaps the most "strangely barbarian
place ... on the face of the earth!" She goes on to offer the
opinion that after years of occupation by Spanish, English and
French colonialists, the Africans of Haiti are more degraded than
those found in the "wilds of Africa." Fields does not
describe what exactly provoked her reaction, as it does not appear
that any of their party went ashore in Port au Prince. See her
entry for Friday 24 through Monday 27 January. In her
journal, Fields frequently recurs to this event as defining the
darkest episode of the tour, the most challenging to her views
about the progress of human history. In this letter, Jewett
seems to react more moderately, though still quite judgmentally.

long quarantine: Fields explains in her journal that
as a result touching shore in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, because there
had been at least one case of yellow fever on the island, they
would have to wait in the St. Thomas harbor for 10 days before
they could go ashore there or in any of the Windward
Islands. Rather than wait so long and possibly increase
their liability of exposure, they elected to return to San
Domingo.

We came up to this pretty old fashioned English
village high enough among the mountains to be cool -- to spend
Sunday and you can't think how nice it is! We miss some of
the luxuries of the yacht to be sure but I cant say I regret them
so much as to make me suffer though I never did sleep in a bed
that felt more like plain wicker work than this one last
night. We went to a hotel six miles from Kingston and spent
Friday night for they were going to paint the hurricane deck and
do some other jobs and mending of the Hermione, and the harbor of
Kingston

[2]

is neither the coolest nor the most fragrant. So we spent the
night at the Constant Spring Hotel where there is a view of both
mountains & sea and found it a great rambling dull barrack in
itself but pretty comfortable.* Yesterday we drove to
Castleton gardens (one of the Government Botanical gardens)* and
started at seven for the 13 miles which we enjoyed going up ) [sic]
very much, it was so shady and cool. The gardens don't
interest me half as much as those at Bath though I did see a
mahogany tree and send you some leaves. It isn't half as
handsome as it ought to be! when we think of its
dignity. We drove back to Kingston after lunch and meant to
go to Spanish Town* where the old Spanish & other government
buildings are, to spend last night and then come on up here, but
we found

[3]

it was low & hot like Kingston, so we made a bold [wish ?
] and a sudden change and come on fifty miles by rail, in a first
class English "carriage" and drove up the mountains ten miles more
which made us [147 ?] miles ^ [drive ?] ^ in all
and wicker beds didn't matter! The air is delicious -- so
cool and lovely & fresh. A. F. & Mr. Pierce* & I
went to church this morning and you would certainly have thought
you were in some old church in Yorkshire, if it had not been for
all the decent black people scattered in. The Church tower
is square & low with a clock and a funny bell, it ought to be
a little peal and you would say it was certainly England with its
church-yard & rector and two or three clergymen.
One thing we have had new here is bread
fruit.* It is very good and,

[4]

now I believe I have had every thing the Swiss Family Robinson*
did but the cassowary.* Wasn't that the nutritious bird they
shot? After church we could see the people going home
through the fields in little companies to eat their Sunday
dinners. I don't know what they have but always yams.
I
have almost never tasted such sweet oranges as grow here. I
believe they are quite famous.
We mean to sleep on board tomorrow night, then
we sail next night for San Domingo which will take us two days
nearly. There are some things to see in Kingston yet.
We drove through the grounds of King's House where the governor
lives and oh such flowers! all the coloured leaved things are
splendid, here coleus & crotons.* But oh my dear sisters
imagine my feelings at find[ing] the Browell* growing by
the roadside in Jamaica!! I was penetrated with feelings at
beholding it and I longed

[Up the left margin of page 1]

to have you both near -- It is a small blue flower that we have
had in Maine.

[Down top margin from left margin on page 1]

I trust you will feel an interest. I saw such pretty oxalis
will* and this is the home of the storied Wandering Jew! and lots
of others little garden things. It is so funny to
see them and makes me think of meeting a

[Up the left margin of page 2]

gov's seal those warm May days that we generally choose. But
[those ?]

[Up the left margin of page 3]

delights don't grow as they do in Switzerland. The Consul
has paid us

[Down top margin from left margin on page 3]

every kind attention [and ?] I can't think I shall like
any place better than Jamaica.

[Up the left margin of page 4]

Give my love to John & Jenny & Liza and much to you
all.

[Down top margin from left margin on page 4]

Sarah. I was so sorry to hear of our Mrs Downy. Becca
will miss her.*

NotesMandeville: According to Wikipedia,
"Mandeville is the capital and largest town in the parish of
Manchester in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica." Stark's
Jamaica
Guide provides a fairly detailed description of
Mandeville as an English village in a tropical setting (pp.
112-6).

Constant Spring Hotel: The Constant Spring Hotel near
Kingston may be seen in a rich post-card
collection, in which this 1905 image appears. See
Fields's diary, January
31, for more detail.

Castleton gardens ... Bath: Castleton is on the Wag
Water River, which flows into Annotto Bay on the north side of the
island, about 24 miles from Kingston. According to Stark, by
the 1890s, the Wag Water had become an important part of
Kingston's water supply. Wikipedia says:
"In the 19th century, the British established a number of
botanical gardens. These included the Castleton Botanical Garden,
developed in 1862 to replace the Bath Garden (created in
1779) which was subject to flooding. Bath Garden was the site for
planting breadfruit, brought to Jamaica from the Pacific by
Captain William Bligh. It became a staple in island diets."

mahogany tree ... send you some leaves: Wikipedia
says Swietenia macrophylla, commonly known as mahogany,
Honduran mahogany, Honduras mahogany, or big-leaf mahogany, is a
species of plant in the Meliaceae family. .... It is
native to South America and Mexico, but naturalized in Singapore
and Hawaii,[2] and cultivated in plantations elsewhere."
The wood is prized for color, hardness and resistance to
termites.

Spanish Town: Wikipedia
says: "Spanish Town is the capital and the largest town in
the parish of St. Catherine in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica.
It was the former Spanish and English capital of Jamaica from the
16th to the 19th century. The town is home to numerous memorials,
the national archives, a small population, and one of the oldest
Anglican churches outside England." Spanish Town is about 13
miles west of Kingston.

bread fruit: "Baobab, common name for a tropical
African tree (see Mallow). ... The fruit, called monkey bread, is
about the size of a citron; the pulp, which has a pleasing acid
taste, is used in the preparation of cooling drinks. The bark of
the tree yields a strong cordage fiber. The baobab, native to
Africa, is now cultivated in many tropical countries throughout
the world." Encarta
Swiss Family Robinson: Wikipedia
says: "The Swiss Family Robinson ... is a novel by Johann
David Wyss, first published in 1812, about a Swiss family
shipwrecked in the East Indies en route to Port Jackson,
Australia."

cassowary: "Common name for any of three members of a
genus of flightless birds. Cassowaries stand 1.2 to 1.8 m (about 4
to 6 ft) high and can run as fast as 48 km/h (30 mph) when
frightened." Encarta. Among the birds
the Swiss Family Robinson shot for food were ortolans and a
bustard. More likely, Jewett is thinking of a bustard, heavy
Old World birds that rarely fly. The Swiss family probably
knew bustards from Switzerland and gave the name to a large
terrestrial bird they shot in the East Indies; therefore, Jewett
is correct that they more likely found a cassowary, which is a
native of the East Indies.King's House: the governor's residence was north of the
village of Halfway Tree. Henry Arthur Blake was governor of
Jamaica, 1888-1897. coleus & crotons ... the Browell: According to Encarta
coleus is a "large genus of tropical African and Asian herbs,
of the mint family. The genus comprises about 100 species, several
of which are extensively cultivated for their brilliantly colored,
variegated foliage."
Crotons are pantropical plants with multiple
varieties, making it difficult to determine which plant Jewett
refers to. A number of domesticated varieties have
multi-colored leaves.
Perhaps Jewett refers to Browallia
which Wikipedia
describes as "a genus of Solanaceae family. It is
named after Johannes Browallius (1707–1755), also known as Johan
Browall, a Swedish botanist, physician and bishop."

oxalis will: Wikipedia says:
"Oxalis ... is by far the largest genus in the wood-sorrel
family Oxalidaceae: .... The genus occurs throughout most
of the world, except for the polar areas; species diversity is
particularly rich in tropical Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.
Many of the species are known as wood sorrels ... as they have an
acidic taste reminiscent of the unrelated sorrel proper (Rumex
acetosa). Some species are called yellow sorrels or pink
sorrels after the color of their flowers instead."

Wandering Jew: As a legendary figure, the Wandering
Jew was a person who refused to allow Jesus Christ to rest at his
door as he bore his cross toward Calvary, and so was condemned by
Jesus to wander over the earth until His second coming. Wikipedia
says that there are three species of Spiderwort, Tradescantia,
called Wandering Jew, perhaps because they grow out in lengthening
vine-like stems.

John & Jenny & Liza ... Mrs Downy. Becca will
miss her: John Tucker was a long-time employee
of the Jewett family. See Correspondents.
Jenny and Liza probably also are Jewett
employees.
Mrs. Downy and Becca have not been identified,
though Becca may be Rebecca Young. See Correspondents.. Assistance is
welcome.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, MS014.02.01. Transcription and
notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to sisters, Carrie Jewett Eastman & Mary Rice
Jewett

Mayaguez, Porto Rico*
Tuesday 11 February [1896]

[Begin letterhead]

Steam Yacht Hermione

[End letterhead]

Dear Sisters,

Here we are in a new little island country --
Spanish this time and as foreign as it can possibly be. We
had an awful voyage from Jamaica rough and tumbling day and night
nearly all the way until until I didn't care whether I ever saw
another island or not! We meant to go to San Domingo city
along the south coast of Hayti but we got into the great blow
& current of trade winds and turned about so that the course
was changed and we stopped first at a little town called Boury*
and then came 'north about' to another

[2]

dirty dilpidated [darkey ?] town called Cape Haytien*
where there was a pretty harbor with old Spanish forts, but we
made a very short look of the town answer, and then came on our
way here. The air is quite different, very cool and fresh
and delicious and the hills ashore look charming not so tropical
but plenty of trees scattered about and a grassy look which we
have seldom seen down here. All the town (the houses I mean)
looks one story high and lovely Spanish damsels made eyes at T.
B.* as we drove along. There is a good big cathedral with
two yellow towers and

[3]

a square in front with a fine statue of Columbus.* It is
very interesting because it is A.F's & my first look at
Spain. We are going ashore again this morning to see the
market and mean to sail this afternoon for San Juan on the north
shore 80 miles and then go on from there to St. Thomas where I
hope there will be a good big mail. How far we ^shall^ get
"down the islands" I can't say: it will depend upon the blowing of
the winds and the height of the waves, but the trade wind which
keeps the air so fresh makes a great surf and you find very few
harbors

[4]

but only roads for the most part, as if we anchored half a
mile or a mile out of Wells in front of Sam's -- Inagua* was like
that and this roadstead is not much better. I have wish[ed]
so many times that I hadn't left my last letter from Auntie*
^before I left home^ in which she said the name of the place where
Mrs. Lind lived. I have tried & tried to think of
it. I asked the consul last night if he knew anything of the
family but he had only been here a few years. He came off to
call quite handsomely with a little old French mother from
Bordeaux with whom A. F. held a great French conversation and made
her have a beautiful time. There are electric lights in
Mayaguez and

[Up the left margin of page 1]

what always pleases us -- an artificial ice machine so that we
stock up and have ice water to drink*. Your sister who
writes you is rather low this morning owing to a steady roll but
she hopes to be the better of going up on

[Up the left margin of page 3]

the hurricane deck and reading a lively tale where the

[Up the left margin of page 4]

wind is blowing. The captain has just been trying to shoot

[Down from the left margin in the top margin of page 4]

a shark which has distracted my mind{.} Ever so much love to all
from S. O. J.

Notes

Mayaguez, Porto Rico: Near the center of the west
coast of Puerto Rico.

San Domingo city along the south coast of Hayti ... a little
town called Boury: Jewett may be confused about the
location of San Domingo, unless she only means that their intended
route was along the southern coast of Haiti. Wikipedia
says: "Santo Domingo ... known officially as Santo Domingo de
Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic
and the largest city in the Caribbean by population."
There is no town named "Boury" on the west
coast of Haiti, though there is an inland area so named northeast
of Port au Prince. In her diary for February
8, Fields reports sailing as far south as Cape Esavois on
the south coast of Haiti, but no coastal town of this name can be
located either. Because the sailing was terrible, perhaps
both writers failed to hear correctly the name of the point at
which the Hermione gave up trying to reach the Dominican
Republic and turned northward toward Cape Haytien on the way to
Puerto Rico. Possibly Fields meant Les Irois, a village on
the tip of the southern peninsula of Haiti.

Cape Haytien: Wikipedia
says 21st century Cap-Haïtien is "often referred to as Le Cap or
Au Cap, is a commune of about 190,000 people on the north coast of
Haiti and capital of the Department of Nord. Previously named as
Cap Français, Cap Henri and historically known as the Paris of the
Antilles, displaying its wealth and sophistication through its
beautiful architecture and artistic life."

Cathedral ... statue of Columbus: Wikipedia
says: "Plaza Colón is the main plaza in the city of
Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. This plaza and its fountain commemorate the
explorer Christopher Columbus, whose name in Spanish was Cristóbal
Colón. The plaza presents the traditional urban relationship in
Puerto Rico with the church, now Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria
Cathedral on one end of the plaza and the "Alcaldia" or Mayagüez
town hall in the other." A statue of Columbus stands in the
center of the plaza.

Wells in front of Sam's -- Inagua: Jewett and her
sisters in South Berwick were familiar with nearby Wells,
Maine. Sam's would appear to be a business, but information
about this has not been located. In her January
23 diary entry, Fields reports: ",,, there is no more
landing at Inagua now than there was in the days of
Columbus. All [the ?] night we could hear the waves dashing
up on the cliffs and up the little beach; the breakers still
washed rather high although there was no storm. However we
ladies were carried ashore by the Captain except S. O. J. who
watched for a chance and deftly jumped and ran."

from Auntie ... Mrs. Lind: Usually, when Jewett
refers to "Auntie," she means her great aunt, Helen Gilman.
See Correspondents.
The identity of Mrs. Lind is unknown.
Assistance is welcome.

electric lights in Mayaguez ... artificial ice machine:
The
Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority says that electric lighting
was introduced to the island in 1893. Dr. John Gorrie (1803
-1855) patented the first ice-making machine in the United States
in 1851. For a detailed history of ice-making in the
nineteenth century, see J. F. Nickerson, "The Development of
Refrigeration in the United States," especially, pp. 170-1, inIce and Refrigeration, Volume 49, Nickerson & Collins
Company, 1915.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, MS014.02.01. Transcription and
notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to sisters, Carrie Jewett Eastman & Mary
Rice Jewett

Cape St. Nicholas Mole
Haiti.*
Tuesday 18th February

Dear Girls

This is the third letter I haven't been able to
mail! At San Domingo* we thought we were pretty sure of
catching a steamer but when caught we found that letters sent by
it wouldn't get to New York before the fifth or sixth of
March.* So we came along letters in [and ?] all, but
at Nassau they will have to look out an extra mail bag.
Today we are left here in this nice snug harbor by a Norther which
is raining a great rain and blowing up the sea outside. We
are making our way as fast as we can to Nassau but it is a long
stretch and oh so rough all the way along the South coast of San
Domingo & Haiti! We had two quite awful nights when the
minute you got to sleep a great

[2]

roll would bang you awake again. Your poor sister has often
thought of her nice room and the fire in the fireplace those
nights before she came away! but everything good costs
something as we have heard, and I shall be glad to have seen these
lovely places. I was dreadfully disappointed about "the
islands,"* but now we are getting near Nassau again and I hope
again for letters and so those woes are put by.

There is a schooner from Tenants Harbor
anchored close by us loading with logwood, or from St. George
which is the same thing.* Isn't it funny? We have seen
a Rockland schooner several times.

Thursday

We have had to lie here two days more until the
Norther blew itself out and now tonight we are going on, I suppose
to be

[3]

rolled about more, but it is only two days to Nassau and then I
shall feel quite near to you all, and I hope to find some
letters. The last one I had from you was at Kingston the
30th of Jan and dated the 24th so it is almost a
month. I have thought of telegraphing but I knew you would
get all the news there was from Lilian's despatches, and at a
dollar & eighty-seven cents a word your ideas seem to fly
away! We have been reading the life of Columbus* all of us
and ^getting^ so interested because he was right here in these
little harbors that we have learned to know so well and even named
them all. It has been cold these last few days so that I took
heart to get out my worsted work and have been much stayed with

[4]

the pleasure of doing it though I haven't got the black sprigs all
filled in yet.

We went ashore day before yesterday and saw the
funniest little mardi gras procession with masks and red things
over their heads dancing in the streets with pipe &
drum.* Coloured children & some bigger ones who danced
ahead and twirled and then went back again. It was so wild
looking somehow. There was a huge old fort here which has
all crumbled down and this poor village seems to be cobbled up out
of the ruins. The President gave us a mongoose in a cage at
San Domingo & we had great fun with it at first but it drooped
under sea faring so today the chief engineer & a 'boy' rowed
ashore and let him out. Bridget* is quite bereft. I
shall leave this envelope open to add

[Down from the left margin in the top margin
of page 1]

a word later as we hope now to get to Nassau Sunday
morning & I think the mail doesn't go until Monday.

NotesCape St. Nicholas Mole Haiti: Wikipedia
says: "Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas landed
at the site of what is now Môle-Saint-Nicolas on December 6,
1492.... Vestiges of colonial forts can be found in several
locations: Batteries de Vallières, Fort Georges, Saint-Charles, La
Poudrière, Le Fort Allemand, Les Ramparts. Ruine Poudrière is an
old magazine built sometime in the 1750s."
Jewett began a sketch entitled "The Cape St.
Nicholas Mole \ Hayti Story," held by the Houghton Library in
Sarah Orne Jewett compositions and other papers, 1847-1909. MS Am
1743.22 (10). Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

San Domingo ... letters ... wouldn't get to New York before the
fifth or sixth of March: In her diary of 13
-
15 February, Fields details the Hermione's stay in
Santo Domingo.

disappointed about "the islands": The original goal
of the Hermione was the Windward Islands, the Lesser
Antilles, between Puerto Rico and Venezuela, but bad weather
prevented their steaming so far south.

Tenants Harbor ... or from St. George which is the same thing
... a Rockland schooner:
Jewett
and Fields had spent part of the summer of 1895 at Tenants Harbor,
ME, the village which bears some resemblance to Dunnet's Landing
in The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), which was
appearing in serial while Jewett was sailing with the Hermione.
St. George and Rockland ME are on the peninsula north of
Tenants Harbor, St. George about 5 miles, Rockland about 14 miles.the life of Columbus ... he was right here in these little
harbors ... and even named them all: Jewett, Fields,
and perhaps their fellow voyagers, as well, were reading
Washington Irving's A History of the Life and Voyages of
Christopher Columbus (1828).

mardi gras: In her February
18
diary, Fields wrote: "It was Mardi gras and a little
procession of a dozen boys ^and girls^ or perhaps they were all
boys dressed as women, and a few children ^all^ in the simplest
disguises danced fantastically to tom-toms up and down the open
ways between the huts -- when their noise stopped a perfectly
^the^ silence of the wilderness settled down. The gaily
dressed figures stood out against the dark mountain-sides, clothed
with green to the summit and black with cloud and vapor which lie
behind and make a background to the place."

President gave us a mongoose ... at San Domingo ... Bridget:
In
her diary of 13
-
15 February, Fields describes the party's dinner with Louis
Mondestin Florvil Hyppolite, President of the Dominican
Republic. Bridget is the servant of Thomas Bailey and Lilian
Aldrich. Wikipedia says
"Mongoose is the popular English name for 29 of 34 species in the
14 genera of the family Herpestidae, which are small
carnivores that are native to southern Eurasia and mainland
Africa." They are an introduced species in the
Caribbean.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, MS014.02.01. Transcription and
notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Carolyn Jewett Eastman and Mary Rice Jewett

Nassau Tuesday
Morning [25 February 1896]*

Dear Girls

We are so delighted to get in -- and after all
our fears of the long stretch & head wind{,} the last day
& night proved better than the first -- I am hoping to get
letters this morning -- and you can't think how long the weeks
seem without a telegram or anything. We are anchored
opposite the barracks this time and I now hear an early

[2]

bugle. After this we get letters nice and often. Keep
sending them to 148 State St. to Talbot* -- until I say not,
because they will be telegraphing & knowing just where we
are. It seems so near to what it has been! that I feel
as if I could almost speak across.
Ever so much love
from A. F. & me.

The manuscript of this letter is held by Historic New England in
Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett to Caroline Augusta Jewett Eastman
and Mary Rice Jewett, Jewett Family Papers: MS014.01.02.01.
Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller. Coe College.

Sarah Wyman Whitman to SOJ

March 4, 1896.

I think I have not written much of
late, you seemed to be out of reach of letters, and beside I
have been in a great valley of silence in which I seemed to have
learned much that I knew not of before. I have been alone long
days together; I have worked and dreamed, and have felt the days
blessed and the lesson of continuance begun.

……………….…Mr. Whitridge* made us a long visitation yesterday
afternoon and it is always very pleasant. He was so funny
and dispairing about Kate Foot* -- always complaining
of something -- cant tell much by what she says
….. he speaks sometimes just like Mr. C. Hobbs* so you would think
them same – it gives me such a funny home like
feeling you must tell Mr. Hobbs that he is here and so
interested to hear all about him and the old place. I
promised him one of my snow pictures of the house taken there by
the Methodist church and if it isnt too much trouble I wish you
would look for it in the box and send it to me. I have had
to go all over the Hayes and the Ferguson girls and Jourdin
Ferguson and that golden time. You would like Mr.
Whitridge. Your sister is so much distracted by the band
playing without and beaucoup des personnes* passing up the middle
of the court past the fountain and some of them getting the
particulars with marked interest* that she cant compose her
thoughts to this letty.* Fifteen rooms of Vanderbilts have created
a great excitement but they are going to Tampa or some where
to-day. There were terrapin for dinner last night. I suppose
in the Vanderbilts honor.* This is all the news of today.

Sarah

Notes

Mr. Whitridge: This is likely to be Frederick
Wallingford
Whitridge (1852-1916), the New York City businessman who
married Matthew Arnold's daughter, Lucy. The
biographical sketch below, from Encyclopedia
of
Biography of New York Volume 5, indicates the Whitridge's
grandmother's family lived in South Berwick. This makes it
understandable that he would remember visiting Cushing relatives
in South Berwick in his youth and would be familiar with local
families such as "the Hayes and the Ferguson girls and Jourdin
Ferguson." Such visits would have taken place during the
childhoods of Sarah and Mary Jewett, but it sounds as if Mary has
not met Whitridge, or at least, that she has not met him as an
adult.

WHITRIDGE, Frederick Wallingford,
Lawyer, Railroad President.

Frederick W. Whitridge springs from New England ancestors, and
partakes of the qualities of thrift and enterprise which have
distinguished the people of that section for three centuries. The
founder of the family in this country was William Whitridge, born
1599, died December 9, 1688, came to America in the ship
"Elizabeth" in 1625, with his wife, Elizabeth, born 1605, and son,
Thomas, from Beninden, County Kent, England....
Thomas Whitridge, son of William and Elizabeth
Whitridge, born 1625, was living in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in
1648, and had a wife, Flor-
ence, who died in 1672.
Their son, William Whitridge, born 1659,
resided in Rochester, Massachusetts, and was the father of Thomas
Whitridge, born there
November 12, 1710, died March 7, 1795. His intention of marriage
to Hannah Haskell was entered September i, 1733.
Their third son. Dr. William Whitridge, was
born February 13, 1748, in Rochester; settled at Tiverton, Rhode
Island, in 1780, dying there April 5, 1831. In 1791 he received
the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Yale College, and in
1823 received the honorary degree of
Doctor of Medicine from Harvard University. He marriedMary
Cushing,
born July 21, 1759, in Scituate, Massachusetts, died in Tiverton,
March 17. 1846.
They had a large family of children born in
Tiverton. Of these, the second son, William Cushing Whitridge, was
born November 25, 1784, in Tiverton, and became a physician,
practicing many years with great success in New Bedford,
Massachusetts. He married his cousin, Olive
Cushing, born February 20, 1783, in Boston, eldest daughter and
fifth child of John and Olive (Wallingford) Cushing, of South
Berwick, Maine, died September 9, 1876.
John Cushing Whitridge, son of William G. and
Olive (Cushing) Whitridge, was born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, and
lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he died in 1908. He
married Lucia Shaw Bailey, daughter of John G. Bailey, of Newport,
Rhode Island, and they were the parents of Frederick Wallingford
Whitridge.

Frederick Wallingford Whitridge was born August
5, 1852, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he grew up, and
received his primary education in the public schools. Entering
Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, he was graduated A. B. in
1874, following which he entered Columbia Law School in New York
City, from which he received the degree of LL. B. in 1877. In that
year he was admitted to the New York bar, but did not engage in
active practice. For some years he was lecturer in the school of
political science attached to Columbia University, and is one of
the founders of the Civil Service Reform Association. Mr.
Whitridge has given his talents and energies to the development
and progress of many business enterprises, and is now a director
of the Niagara Development Company and the Cataract Construction
Company. He is and has been for several years receiver and
president of the Third Avenue Railroad Company of New York City.
In religion he is an Episcopalian, and in politics independent of
party dictation. On the occasion of the marriage of King Alfonso
of Spain to Princess Victoria Eugenie of England, Mr. Whitridge
was appointed by the President as special ambassador to attend the
ceremonies as representative of the United States. He has been an
occasional contributor to magazines on various subjects, and has
demonstrated a large amount of business ability and versatility in
other directions. He is a member of several clubs, including the
University, Knickerbocker, Metropolitan, City, Downtown Players,
Century and Westchester County clubs.
He married, in 1884, Lucy Arnold, daughter of
Matthew and Lucy (Wightman) Arnold, and they have children:
Arnold, Eleanor, Joan. For a quarter of a century the family has
resided in the same house on East Eleventh street, New York City,
and the summers are spent in the Scottish Highlands, where Mr.
Whitridge is the owner of a beautiful estate.

Kate Foot: This may be Kate Knowlton Foote
(1860-1943), wife of the American composer Arthur Foote (1853-1937). See Correspondents.

C. Hobbs: This may be Charles
C.
Hobbs (1835-1917), local
historian in South Berwick. He is a grandson of Olive
Wallingford Cushing of South Berwick, as is Frederick Wallingford
Whitridge.
It is possible however, that Jewett refers to
South Berwick grocer, Charles
E.
Hobbs (1844-1941). See Business
Block, the Old Berwick Historical Society

the Hayes and the Ferguson girls and Jourdin Ferguson and that
golden time: The Hayes and Ferguson families were old
and prominent South Berwick families. As indicated above,
"the golden time" is likely to include time Frederick Whitridge
spent with family in South Berwick during his childhood.

Your sister is so much distracted The Ponce de Leon was one
of the hotels that regularly employed bands to entertain guests
during the winter season. See note and photograph
above. It appears Jewett writes in the loggia or in a room
that faces the courtyard and fountain, with windows open, allowing
her to hear the band, and people passing and gossiping.

beaucoup des personnes: French. Many people.

Fifteen rooms of Vanderbilts: Thomas Graham reports
in Chapter 17 of Mr. Flagler's St. Augustine, that in
March of 1896, Cornelius Vanderbilt reserved nearly 20 rooms for
"a huge retinue of friends." He quotes a contemporary: "Mr.
Vanderbilt is very unassuming, the ladies and gentlemen going
about in the most democratic fashion while here." But he
notes that "the Vanderbilts usually dined upstairs in a private
room set up for them, with their own headwaiter to bring up dishes
from the main kitchen below."

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in the
Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England,
Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Undated Letters, Folder
75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more
information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine
Women Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

[16 March 1896] [Date penciled in another hand ]
Monday Morning in the train

[ Begin hotel stationary letterhead ]

Hotel Ponce de Leon
Gillis and Murray, Managers
St. Augustine, Fla.

[ End letterhead ]

Dear Mary

Here we are all started and so pleased to be
going home, though it is so very pleasant to stay at our fine
palace of the Ponce de Leon. Who do you think saw us to the
train but Mr. & Mrs. Edmunds!* Who came up from the
south where he had been fishing -- with such a sunburnt nose and
great friendliness. They [came ? written over another
word] Saturday night but we didn't see

[ Page 2 ]

them until yesterday morning since when we have played together
pretty steadily. They were so sorry we were coming away for
they mean to stay until Saturday and your sister is decked with
violets presented by old Mr. Whitridge* -- who was delightful to
the last & hopes to come to S Berwick -- some time. He
had seen the Berwick paper in the New England* & couldn't say
enough about it -- I really enjoyed him very much -- I dare
say we shall find it cold on getting home but we dont

[ Page 3 ]

much care & mean to be careful. We shall not stay long
in New York. I am afraid from what you say that I am not
likely to find you there but we can "play something else" -- A.
F.* interpolates a grateful message about the bonnet which
she appreciates all over again ^it^ having been laid aside in the
warm season for Madame Howard's hat* --
-- As we go along all the pear trees &
cherry trees look

[ Page 4 ]

so pretty in full bloom. I wonder how far the Hermione* has
got through the big seas.

I am going to post this at Jacksonville.*
We hope to reach the Albemarle tomorrow afternoon{.}* The train
gets in between three & four.
With ever so much love.
Sarah.

Mr. Whitridge was so pleased with the pictures you sent -- of the
house. Perhaps you could

[Up the left side of page 1]

come up to 148* to meet us. A. F. just came out with the
same [wish written over letters] -- It would give you
[a written over letters] nice little change. "prepared
to
stay a few days" A. F. says!!

Notes

Mr. & Mrs. Edmunds: George
Franklin Edmunds (1828 - 1919) was a Republican U.S. Senator
from Vermont. In 1852 he married Susan Marsh (1831-1916);
they had two daughters, Mary (1854-1936) and Julia
(1861-1882). Jewett and Fields enjoyed friendly association
with the family during their 1888 stay in Aiken, SC. See the
letters of March
1888.

Dear Mary.
Our long stretch is over and we got here
just before dark an hour or so late which isn't very much for
a southern train. I had my cold come back with seven
others -- (or caught a new one I dont know which) and last
night and today have seemed pretty long. I had a brow-ago
almost -- like the one John had once* so that I could hardly
see all day and the sun on the snow blinded me to pieces, but
now I am here and we have a good supper of some tea &

[ Page 2 ]

bread & butter broiled together and feel much better so as to
take notice. Your dear letter and Stubbys* met me when I
came and as I finished my supper first I had such a good time
reading. And they were appreciated by 2 ants. Only
think of dear Cousin Maria's* having come! I can seem to see
her sitting by the window -- and I hope to really see her in a
[very ?] few days -- (I wish you could run up for one
night to go & see the portraits with me. Stubby would
come over and pass the night to keep company.)
I shall come right home (unless the Hermione*
has got in before me) and then I shall have to

[ Page 3, 2nd sheet of stationary ]

come back to get my things for Mrs. Fields & Lilian will be
busy enough and I have got stowaway shells, beside a share of
shells in common. How I with I had a lot of lovely things to
bring you all! I was sure of great shoppings in "The
Windward Islands" -- but almost everywhere we went the things in
the stores were from here & poor looking, and we could rarely
find nice shells and were always told of tortoise shell &
baskets down the islands. But you would forgive a
sister if she came home pleasant I felt sure! (A. F. sends
her love. She was hoping to see you as much as I, but we can
make other arrangements.)

[ Page 4 ]

We like the hotel very much you know the old Brevoort people* are
here, and we have got such nice little rooms with a bathroom up
one flight just what we like
= I dont know how I shall feel about staying on
-- if my cold troubles me as much as today I had rather go right
on, for there is a lot of melting snow, and I couldn't get
about. But it does feel ameliorated tonight. I
wish you could see the puckers in my green dress! -- I don't think
you ever saw so many but I had to do it up to keep the damp out
& keep it in a locker. Goodbye with much love to all.
from Sarah.

Notes

Albemarle Hotel: A 1904 ad in McClure's
Magazine 22 (p. 27), describes the Albemarle: "The location
of this house is most desirable, being central to all places of
amusement and convenient to the shopping district. O. B.
Libbey, Prop., (for twenty-five years at the Brevoort
House.)" Historic
Hotels
of the Village says: "The Hotel Brevoort was built in 1845
by the Brevoort family, owners of a large tract of land stretching
from 5th Avenue to the Bowery and extending north of 14th Street.
The hotel was demolished in 1954 and a new residential building,
aptly named the Brevoort, still stands today. The hotel, and its
later café, were frequented by heads of state as well as Village
artists and writers."

brow-ago: Presumably Jewett is fancifully spelling "brow
ague," referring to neuralgic pain in the temple, as in a sinus
headache.

Hermione: The Windward Islands were the intended
destination of the exhausting cruise on The Hermione just
completed, but rough seas frustrated the party's plans, and Puerto
Rico marked the outward limit of their tour. The Hermione's
party consisted of: Jewett, Annie Fields (A.F.), Thomas Bailey
(T.B.A.) and Lilian Aldrich and their servant, Bridget, and the
yacht owner and host, Henry Lillie Pierce. See Correspondents.

Brevoort people: See note above for the Albemarle
Hotel.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, Box 6, Folder 3, Letter
4. Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.

I just send a word to say that my cold still
rages and you might hear loud sneezes if you listened, but I hope
to be out tomorrow. It seemed wiser to keep in though it is
a lovely day -- I suppose this will delay our getting back as I
want to do a few errands against my summer clothes. There
are those who have been as far as Stern's* this morning, and had a
beautiful time. I was so

[ Page 2 ]

much obliged for your letter & Becca's{.} Give
my love to her & to Liddy* and to "all" -----
In haste
Sarah

I do hope Cousin Fanny & Auntie* can come -- We'll have
a great time.

Notes

Stern's: Wikipedia
says: "Stern Brothers was founded in 1867 by Isaac, Louis and
Benjamin Stern, sons of German Jewish immigrants. In that year,
they began selling dry goods in Buffalo, New York. From these
humble beginnings, the Stern Brothers became an important
merchandising family in New York City.
"In 1868, they moved to New York City and
opened a one-room store at 367 Sixth Avenue. In 1879, the store
was again relocated to larger quarters at 110 West 23rd Street.
Outgrowing the store at 110 West 23rd Street, Stern Brothers
erected a new structure at the same location which became the new
flagship store in 1878. It was noted for its cast-iron facade at
32 to 36 West 23rd Street and 23 to 35 West 22nd Street."

Cousin Fanny & Auntie: For Jewett, Auntie often
means Mrs. Helen Williams Gilman (1817-1905). See Correspondents.
However, as the 19 March letter to Mary below indicates, Jewett is
expecting a visit from her Exeter relatives upon her return, and,
therefore, she may mean her Aunt Lucretia.
Cousin Fanny (sometimes Fannie) would then be
Frances F. Perry (1861-1953), Jewett's mother's niece, the
daughter of Dr. William G. Perry and Lucretia M. Fisk. See
Cary, Letters
of
Sarah Orne Jewett.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, Box 6, Folder 3, Letter
5. Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.

I feel better today but it is a great rain so
there is no thought of going out. It is a good thing to have
this great cold over, so that I can start fair when I get
home. I don't think we shall go until Saturday at any
rate. there are those who are so pleasant Mary and ran out
to 23rd St. this morning between the drops. Dont have the
company from [Exeter ? written over letters] *

[ Page 2 ]

until next week -- I should be so distressed to miss a beautiful
occasion. Thank you so much for the Transcript* [re ?]
-- they have beguiled a poor sister much this day. Susan
Travers* has been here, as nice as ever and I haven't been unhappy
though I should like to have spent the day at the Metropolitan
museum!* We have been counting on this couple of days for
some time -- A. F. sends her love -- With much love to all

Sarah.

Notes

company from Exeter: Several of Jewett's mother's
family, the Perrys, resided in Exeter, NH. See above the 18
March letter to Mary.

Metropolitan museum: Wikipedia
says: "The New York State Legislature granted the Metropolitan
Museum of Art an Act of Incorporation on April 13, 1870 'for the
purpose of establishing and maintaining in said City a Museum and
Library of Art, of encouraging and developing the Study of the
Fine Arts, and the application of Art to manufacture and natural
life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and
to that end of furnishing popular instruction and recreations.'
The museum first opened on February 20, 1872,
housed in a building located at 681 Fifth Avenue in New York
City."

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, Box 6, Folder 3, Letter
6. Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Annie Adams Fields or possibly Sarah Wyman Whitman*

Albermarle [ so transcribed ] Hotel*

Madison Square, West

New York

[ March 1896 ]*

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This is my love O as
children said [intended send ? ] a kiss in a
letter.* I send one myself to you. And I love you
and keep you safe in my heart just as if you were the
Spring. Which is not the flowers or the green leaves or
the look of the sky but something warm that has a heart --
something live that could not say it if you were here but I wish
I were with you for all that! Good night dear! S. O.
J.

Notes

Whitman: Though Jewett and Whitman were close
enough to exchange letters expressing affection in this style,
this letter seems more characteristic of Jewett's writing to
Fields.

March 1896: This date is very tentative, based on
the fact that Jewett wrote a series of letters from this hotel
in March of 1896 after she and Fields had returned from a long
and taxing Caribbean cruise with Henry Pierce and Lilian and
Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Jewett stayed at the hotel for
several days while recovering from a severe cold. Whether
Fields departed before Jewett is not yet known.
A handwritten note with this text reads: [To:
S.W.?]. The points the beginning indicate this is an
incomplete transcription.

Albermarle Hotel: The Albemarle Hotel,
Madison Square West, New York City. A 1904 ad in McClure's
Magazine 22 (p. 27), describes the Albemarle: "The
location of this house is most desirable, being central to all
places of amusement and convenient to the shopping
district. O. B. Libbey, Prop., (for twenty-five years at
the Brevoort House.)"

kiss in a letter: It is difficult to locate
authoritative on-line sources on the history of using "x o x o"
and variations in correspondence to signify hugs and kisses. Wikipedia offers a tentative beginning
(May 2017).

This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in
the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England,
Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder 74, Burton
Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about
the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers
Collection. Preparation by Linda Heller. Notes by
Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Louisa Loring Dresel

Monday

[ Late March, 1896 ]

My dearest Loulie

I am so grieved to think that I cannot get to see you today but I
am so miserable yet after last week's illness in New York and so
anxious not to fall ill again here that I can do nothing but stay
in by the fire. A few days at home will set me up and then

[ Page 2 ]

I can come back. It would be too much for dear A.F.* to have
me upon her hands again ... A touch of the grippe* or
whatever it was has made me very shaky & useless. But I
think and think of you dear and somehow live over again my waiting
and watching like yours, of three or

[ Page 3 ]

four years ago. I hope you will feel something of the love
and nearness I feel for you Loulie dear and that I can be really
nearer to you in every sense later on.

Send for your "Aunties" dear. -- I hope
your aunt 'Kiddy'* will be well enough to come to you. It
will be the greatest comfort you can give her

[ Page 4 ]

in what is ^is & will be^ a great sorrow* to
her to have you turn right to her -- I learned this myself, for I
think one is mistaken in trying to 'save' people -- She will want
to be 'the one' as children say --- they all will. I dare
say you would think of this before me, but you know I am older and
alas I know! And I hate to think of you alone though one
must be alone no matter.

[ Up the left side and down the top margin
of page 1 ]

how many there are ... And when the suffering is all done you will
feel a great peace as if it shone back to you from the new life
just beginning.

with love and thought of you. S. O. J.

Notes

Late March, 1896: Almost certainly, Jewett refers in
this letter to the death of Louisa Dresel's mother, Anna Loring on
23 March 1896. Jewett implies that the weather is chilly,
making it hard for her to go out as she recovers from her recent
illness in New York, probably following her grueling winter 1896
cruise in a stormy Caribbean. This would be another reason
why she would not want to burden Annie Fields, who also was
exhausted by the cruise. Jewett does not mention Dresel's mother,
but suggests turning to her aunts for comfort. Further, the
reference to Louisa watching for Jewett a few years earlier
(actually about 4 and one half), is likely a reference to the
death of Jewett's mother in October of 1891.

'Kiddy': Caroline Howard King (1822-1909), called
"Kiddy" by her family, was born in Salem, lived there until 1866,
then for thirty years in Boston, after which she returned for the
rest of her life to Salem. She authored When I Lived in Salem
1822-1866 (Brattleboro, Vt., 1937) -- for which Dresel
wrote the preface. (Richard Cary)

great sorrow: Louisa's father died in July 1890, her
mother on 23 March 1896.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Columbia University
(New York) Library in Special Collections, Jewett.
Transcription from a microfilm copy and annotation by Terry
Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Caroline Howard King*

148 Charles Street
Thursday
[ Late March 1896 ]

Dear Cousin Caroline

I thought of you when I first waked up this
morning, and with so much love -- I wish that I could say anything
that would give you a little comfort in so great a loss* but I
cannot help remembering that your own love and memory comfort you
best. And there does come such a new feeling of nearness, and

[ Page 2 ]

complete understanding. I sometimes think that mis-understanding
is the only thing to fear! -- and all that is forever swept
away. I like to think that Loulie* is with you -- it is a
blessing to her and will be her best comfort.

Please do not forget that my heart is with you,
even if I cannot go.

Yours very affectionately and with dear
remembrance of her --

Sarah

[ Page 3 ]

I hope to see Mrs Cabot* today.

Notes

Caroline Howard King: While it is not certain that this
letter is addressed to Caroline Howard King, it seems likely, and
if that is the case, this may another of several letters Jewett
wrote upon the occasion of the death of Louisa Dresel's mother on
23 March 1896. See Correspondents.
The recipient and this date remain somewhat uncertain because King
is not yet known to be related to Jewett. She was sister to
Dresel's grandmother.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library,
University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne
Jewett Papers. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe
College.

SOJ to Louisa Loring Dresel

Friday March 27th
[ 1896 ]*

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick.
Maine.

[ End letterhead ]

My dear Loulie

You are so often in my thoughts -- after all,
one sometimes comes nearer by thinking than by speech and if I
were still in town I could not go to see you. I think of you
particularly today when you will be finding it very strange to
have all hurry at end, and that there are fewer things coming to
you for decisions. You and Ellis* have had to decide things
more and more in these last months

[ Page 2 ]

and have grown used to new cares. One does get used to all
that and to taking responsibilities -- it is when new and
unforeseen conditions come that you will be always thinking that she
would know about them. I believe I miss my mother's* counsel
much more in new affairs than in familiar ones.

-- I wonder if one thing is paining you now as
it pained me and if I cannot help you a little. I was so
distressed by all I saw my mother go through, and I became aware
when she was gone of many sufferings

[ Page 3 ]

which I thought I had not felt half enough at the time, and it
seemed to me as if they would forever haunt me sleeping and
waking. But dear Loulie they do fade out and time is
a great healer. If they trouble you now be sure they will
not always trouble you. All the piteousness and ignominy of
a long illness fades out of mind and will not spoil your peace any
more than they will hers. I want to tell you this and to
tell Ellis. And one learns over again that a larger life
opens for us just as it does to the dear one who has

[ Page 4 ]

gone; those who are wiser than us help so very much at such times.

I love* A. F.'s verse*

Still in thy love I trust
Supreme in Death since deathless is thy essence
For, putting off the dust
Thou hast but blest me with your presence.
_______________________________________

I love to think of your dear Aunt Sallie
Cary's* being with you -- She came to me that morning like the
dearest and kindest of friends, and gave me a bit of sunshine to
keep for ever in remembrance. And I know you will be a great
comfort to your other Aunties. I send you

[ Written up the left margin and then down
the top margin of page 1 ]

Dr. Morton's* card. She came after I had come home that day
& A.F. had gone out. The real feeling of what she wrote
in her little message touched me very much and you will like to
see it. Goodbye dear Loulie{.} I shall be thinking of
you and I shall see you next week.

Aunt Sallie Cary's: Sarah Gray Cary (1830-1898) was a younger
sister of Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz. See Correspondents.
Though Lousia's mother was a close friend of the Cary family, no
evidence has yet been found to establish that she was a
relative. Therefore, it appears the "Aunt" is an honorary
term in this case. See Lucy Allen Paton, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz: A Biography
(1919).

Dr. Morton's: Dr. Helen Morton (1834-1916) had offices
successively on Marlboro, Boylston, and Chestnut streets in
Boston. Richard Cary says that Jewett once characterized her as
"touchy {touching?} in her doctorly heart and more devoted in her
private capacity as a friend."

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Columbia University
(New York) Library in Special Collections, Jewett.
Transcription from a microfilm copy and annotation by Terry
Heller, Coe College.

Sarah Wyman Whitman to SOJ

April 3, 1896. At Sea.

The "deep" wasn't very bad, but
somehow I succumbed with more than my usual facility (spite of
the presence of dear S.
C.
W.'s Elixir); that admirable weapon the Human Will going
to pieces as if it were made of flax; and reducing one to terms
of which we will not speak for very scorn. But now I have
regained a human composure. . . . Not having thought I naturally
have not read, till now I find myself wandering in the sweet
mystic pages of Le
Tresor
des Humbles, where I find some words that have much
truth and beauty. I think you will have read it too, and will
have believed that the soul is entering upon such possessions as
are therein described. Ah, how the "dream saves the world," how
real is that which lies just out of sight it may be, but not out
of feeling.

Notes

S. C. W.'s Elixir: It is
probable that a mutual friend, Sarah Cabot Wheelwright,
was visiting Whitman at this time. Wheelwright (1835-1917)
was an artist, married to Andrew Cunningham
Wheelwright. See Correspondents.

Le Tresor des Humbles: The Belgian author, Maurice
Maeterlinck (1862-1949) wrote Le Tresor des Humbles
(1896, The Treasure of the Humble, trans. 1897).
Presumably, "dream saves the world" is from this
work, but the quotation has not yet been located. Help is
welcome. Research assistance: Gabe Heller.

I thank you for your very kind note. I
have been hoping to go to 4 Park Street every day but I came
back ill, and the owner of what you might call either a lame or
a game eye, so that both business and pleasure have been
neglected. I have the better part of a new sketch done of Mrs.
Todd and an island hermitage1 and I shall finish it
before I do anything else.

I hope that you and Mrs. Scudder have
had a good winter, and I shall ask you eagerly for news from
Bryn Mawr.2

Yours sincerely,

S. O. Jewett

Notes1 Published as untitled
Chapter XIV of The Country of the Pointed Firs in the Atlantic
Monthly,
LXXVIII (July 1896), 83-86; called "The Hermitage" when
issued in book form later that year. 2 Scudder's daughter Sylvia
was in her freshman year at Bryn Mawr College at this time.

This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah
Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby College Special
Collections, Waterville, Maine.

SOJ to Thomas Wentworth Higginson

148 Charles Street
Wednesday April 9th [1896]*

Dear Colonel Higginson

Your most kind note has been taking a
Southern journey on its own account but I glad to say that it
has sought the North again and comes to my hand today. I
don't know why I said gaff and meant sprit!* I can see the
sail as I saw it when I was writing and I know better! You
see how much I needed a winter

[ Page 2 ]

cruise in the Bahamas and West Indies* to make me more accurate
in using a sea phrase?

You give me great pleasure by saying such
kind things about the two sketches -- or rather the three
sketches.* Mr. Scudder* left out their ^sub^ titles of
which I thought best to scatter in now and then at the head of
my divisions, but I feel as if some persons would take

[ Page 3 ]

the Pointed Firs to be a poor invertebrate sort of serial.

I am truly sorry that you have had such a
siege of illness, and I hope that the month since you wrote your
letter has done much for you. I think it may seem
unsympathetic to suggest that my own diet in theregions of the Caribbean sea on the other side of the
republic of Haiti and in the Navassa passage* makes yours of the
winter sound

[ Page 4 ]

like a banquet! Trade winds taken the wrong way can make
a monstrous sea: but when half a dozen of the crew are in the
last agonies no wonder that a reflective passenger goes below
and reads the letters of Madame de Sévigné* and declines a
summons to luncheon.

With kindest regards and a hope that you are
much better in these bright spring days

Yours most truly

Sarah O. Jewett

[ Up the left and top margins of page 1 ]

I have very good news from Madame Blanc* who
always keeps kindest remembrance. Her Les Americains
Chez Elles has gone through many large editions. It
is meant for France but it has pages that are good for America
too.

Notes

1896: This letter was composed shortly after
Jewett's return from her winter 1896 Caribbean cruise and while
The Country of the Pointed Firs was appearing in serial
in Atlantic Monthly.

gaff ... sprit: F. O. Mathiessen in his biography of
Jewett writes:

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, after reading the second section
in the 'Atlantic,' told her, 'That last paper of yours is
perfectly fascinating -- your trip to the island -- nothing in
"Deephaven" is more redolent of bayberry and wild roses ....
But are you sure you are right in putting a gaff to a
spritsail?' And the rest of this letter is a long discussion
of the point with drawings of various sails.

The word "sprit" does not appear in The Country of the
Pointed Firs, and "gaff" appears only once, in Chapter 8,
Green Island. It is exactly the same in the March Atlantic
installment. It appears that if Higginson caught an error,
Jewett lost track of it as she prepared the book publication.

West Indies: Jewett in the company of Annie Fields
and Thomas and Lilian Aldrich were the guests of Henry Pierce on
his steam yacht, the Hermione, for a January-March 1896
Caribbean cruise.

three sketches: It is not perfectly clear why Jewett
identifies three sketches. The second Atlantic installment
of The Country of the Pointed Firs had appeared in
March, with chapters 1-11.

Madame Blanc ... Les Americains Chez Elles:
Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc. See Correspondents.
Her notes on visiting the United States, American Women at
Home, appeared in 1896.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the American Antiquarian
Society, Worcester, MA in Sarah Orne Jewett Papers, Misc. mss.
boxes “J.” Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller. Coe
College.

SOJ to Edward Henry Clement

20 April
[ 1896 ]*

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick.
Maine.

[ End letterhead ]

Dear Mr. Clement

This poem of Mrs Fields' seem to have been
written on purpose for these new days of the old Great Games,* so
I have copied it from the volume of The Singing Shepherd*
hoping that you will find a place to reprint it. It might
have a

[ Page 2 ]

word of 'heading'. I am so glad that the olive wreath* is
still used ^at the games^ instead of a modern symbol of it.

With my kind regards
Yours sincerely

S. O. Jewett

Notes

1896: This date, in another hand, appears on the
manuscript of this letter. 1896 marked the first "modern"
international Olympic summer games, and this date is confirmed by
the reprinting of the poem Jewett offers Clement in this letter..

The Singing Shepherd: Mr. Clement, editor-in-chief of
the Boston Evening Transcript, did in fact reprint "The
Coronal" from Annie Adams Fields' The Singing Shepherd (1895) on 23
April 1896, p. 8. This head-note appeared with the poem:
"The giving of the wild olive wreaths made from the trees of
Olympia to our young American winners of the old Greek games
recalls Mrs. Field's [so written] beautiful poem in her
late volume of verse: 'The Singing Shepherd.'"

What needs he other gift,
The hero, with his living torch aflame,
Held high until the hour
The godhead gild his name!

No dusty sign for him,
No flaunting pile to quicken Fortune's wheel!
Only Demeter's leaf
And tears that downward steal.

olive wreath: According to Wikipedia, the
first-place winners in 1896 events received a silver medal and an
olive branch.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the Abernethy Collection;
Special Collections and Archives, Middlebury College Library,
Middlebury, VT, Jewett, Sarah Orne Letters to Edward Henry
Clement, 1896, Box 8, Folder 15.

SOJ to Rose Lamb

Monday [May] 11th, 1896,* South
Berwick, Maine.

My dear Rose, -- I was in town again
for a few days, last week; I mean week before last, and I
thought of you and of Mrs. R -- ,* but I was more taken up with
affairs than usual so that I could not manage to get to see you.
Now I am so busy with some writing here that I cannot say when I
shall get to town again. But tell Mrs. R -- that the only way is
to keep at work! If I were she I should read half a dozen really
good and typical stories over and over! Maupassant's "Ficelle"
for pathos and tragic directness, for one, and some of Miss
Thackeray's fairy stories, "Cinderella," for instance, which I
have always admired very much, old-fashioned romance put into
modern terms, and Miss Wilkins's story about getting the
squashes in one frosty night, and the cats being lost! I can't
remember its name though the story is so clear and exquisite to
my mind, and Daudet's "La Chevre de M. Sequin [Seguin]"
and "La Mule du Pape."* These are all typical and well
proportioned in themselves and well-managed, and I speak of them
because they come readily to my mind, and give one clear ideas
of a beautiful way of doing things. One must have one's own
method: it is the personal contribution that makes true value in
any form of art or work of any sort.

I could write much about these things,
but I do not much believe that it is worth while to say
anything, but keep at work! If something comes into a
writer's or a painter's mind the only thing is to try it,
to see what one can do with it, and give it a chance to show if
it has real value. Story-writing is always experimental, just as
a water-color sketch is, and that something which does
itself is the vitality of it. I think we must know what
good work is, before we can do good work of our own, and so I
say, study work that the best judges have called good and see why
it is good; whether it is in that particular story, the
reticence or the bravery of speech, the power of suggestion that
is in it, or the absolute clearness and finality of revelation;
whether it sets you thinking, or whether it makes you see a
landscape with a live human figure living its life in the
foreground.

Forgive this hasty note, which perhaps
you will read to Mrs. R -- I could not say more just now if we
were talking together.

Yours affectionately.

Notes

1896: Assuming that Fields has the correct year
for this letter, then the only Monday to fall on the 11th was in
May.

Mrs. R: The identity of this person is not yet
known. Assistance is welcome.

Maupassant's "Ficelle" ... some of Miss Thackeray's
fairy stories, "Cinderella," ... Miss Wilkins's story about
getting the squashes in one frosty night, and the cats being
lost! ... Daudet's "La Chevre de M. Seguin" and "La Mule du
Pape":
Guy de Maupassant's (1850-1893) collection of
stories, Yvette. La Ficelle. Le Papa De Simon. Deux Amis. La
Parure, first appeared posthumously in 1907 in French.
However "La Ficelle" had been published in France in 1884.
Anne Thackeray, Lady Ritchie's "Cinderella"
appeared in Five Old Friends and a Young Prince (1868).
Mary Reichardt identifies the Mary Wilkins
Freeman story as "An Object of Love." She says "It was
commissioned by Harper's Bazar for the Valentine's Day
1885 issue, and was later collected in a Humble Romance and
Other Stories (Harper and Brothers, 1887), Freeman's first
short story collection." For an analysis of the story see
Reichardt, Mary Wilkins Freeman: A Study of the Short Fiction
(1997). Reichardt points out that there is only one lost cat in
the story.
Jewett probably read Daudet's stories in
French. She could have found "La Chevre de M. Seguin" in Baptiste
Méras's collection Cinq Histoires published in the
United States in 1899. "La Mule du Pape" appeared in the United
States in Le Siége De Berlin, et D'autres Contes (1887)
and again in Trois Contes Choisis (1891).

I will send you one or two short sketches for
your youths department between now and August -- My serial in St.
Nicholas* has given me a new interest in such work, but I do not
wish to undertake a long piece of writing -- How your work

[ Page 2 ]

has grown! I like to think that I had to do with its
beginning* --

Yours very truly
Sarah O. Jewett.

I have not forgotten the sketch for older
people* which I promised you last year. Indeed I was
thinking it over today.

Notes

1896: As the notes below indicate, this letter is
likely to have been composed soon after Jewett's "Betty
Leicester's English Christmas" appeared in St. Nicholas.

serial for St. Nicholas: Jewett published two serials
in St. Nicholas, "A Bit of Color" (1889), which was
incorporated into Betty Leicester (1890) and "Betty
Leicester's English Christmas" in 1895-6. This letter seems
to suggest that Jewett plans to submit stories for McClure's
Magazine, which began publication in 1893.

beginning: Jewett contributed to the first issue of McClure's
Magazine in June 1893, introducing "Human Documents:
Portraits of Distinguished People."

sketch for older people: Jewett is not known to have
published any fiction for younger readers in McClure's
Magazine. Her first story to appear there was "Bold
Words at the Bridge" in April 1899.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library,
University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne
Jewett Papers. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe
College.

SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett

Sunday

[14 June 1896]*

Dear Mary

Only think of Mrs. Claflin’s being dead!* We were so
surprised -- it seemed as if it must be Mr.
Claflin. Mrs. Fields* saw her just before she came down
here. I suppose the funeral will be Tuesday and so I shall
not come home tomorrow night as expected. I am pretty sure
you will want to go to the funeral. I think we ought and
if it is Tuesday I will meet you at the club. The last
time I saw her was while Miss Kingsley was in Boston: how one
only remembers the kindness at such a time and forgets
everything else. I have been wondering if Mrs. Ellis wont
come & stay with her father. Arthur & his wife*
have let their house up the shore here and were going to Europe
& I wonder if they may not be gone.

The company here is getting on nicely. They are going in
the morning. I wish you were here to see them Susan* is so
engaging. Mrs. Whitman* is coming to dinner tonight.
I shouldn’t have had very pleasant weather at Conway,* but every
opportunity to go over the house. I wonder if you have
been detained from church another Sunday! I shall
see you so soon that I can tell things. I have been doing
a little writing yesterday & today so my beak is up
again. A poor sister sends much love & love from A.F.
Mrs. Cabot* is really better but she still looks pretty
sick. Good bye with love to all from

Sarah

Notes

14 June 1896: A handwritten note on this
transcription reads:1894? However, the exact date is indicated
by the reference to the death of Mary Claflin, which took place
on Saturday, 13 June 1896.

Miss Kingsley: The identity of Miss Kingsley is
not yet known. Two possibilities are Mary Kingsley (1862-1900), the British
writer and explorer and niece of Anglican priest and author, Charles Kingsley, and Mary St Leger Kingsley (1862-1931), the
British novelist daughter of Charles Kingsley. Whether
either of these women visited the United States and met Mrs.
Claflin in the 1890s is not yet known. It is quite
possible that another less illustrious Miss Kingsley is meant.

Mrs. Ellis ... her father ... Arthur & his wife:
Mrs. Ellis is Emma Harding Claflin Ellis. See Correspondents.
Her father was Massachusetts Governor William Claflin, and
Arthur Bucklin Claflin was her half-brother.

Susan: This Susan may be Susan Travers, a regular
visitor, or possibly Susan Marcia Oakes Woodbury or even Susan
Hayes Ward. Assistance is welcome. See Correspondents.

Conway: Conway, NH is a resort town in the White
Mountains, where Jewett often vacationed.

Mrs. Cabot: Susan Burley Cabot. See Correspondents.
This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in the
Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England,
Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder 73, Burton
Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the
individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers
Collection. Preparation by Linda Heller. Notes by
Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Thomas Bailey Aldrich

June 18th 1896

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick.
Maine.

[ End letterhead ]

My dear T.B.

I think the poem of Santo Domingo* is most
lovely. You can hardly think how it brings back that harbor and
the red tower and all our days in that far port, but most of all
the day comes back when you said to me those two beautiful lines
at the end. They seem more beautiful than ever -- I shall
get it all by heart, for this

[ Page 2 ]

poem speaks to me as few poems ever can. It is just as beautiful
as I knew it was going to be! and I think you so much, my dear
friend, for giving A.F. and me the pleasure of this early reading.
I shall be watching the Century; in the meantime I am
sending it right off to Mrs. Fields (A.F. or T.L.* I ought to have
said with proper ceremony.)

I think so often of you and

[ Page 3 ]

Lilian.* This is a sad June for you both and I wish that I were
near enough to give the least help. I did so hope that you would
come to Berwick just now with Lilian & Mr. Pierce but I know
from Lilian how impossible it seems to even think of such a thing.
But if things are better with your two invalids you must let me
know. From sad experience I know what a strain it is and sometimes
a little change is a great

[ Page 4 ]

help and freshener to ones powers. Do count upon me as more than
ready to give a helping hand in any way that I possibly can. --
and always

Yours affectionately

Sarah O. Jewett

Notes

Santo Domingo poem: Aldrich's "Santo Domingo" recounts his
first sighting of the capital of the Dominican Republic after
"long days of angry sea and sky." As Jewett indicates, she
is well aware of the occasion of this poem, the storm-tossed cruise of the Caribbean the previous winter,
which included Jewett, Annie Fields, and the Aldriches as guests
of Henry L. Pierce on his steam yacht, the Hermione.
Aldrich's poem appeared in The Century
Magazine v. 53 (November 1896), p. 32.

AFTER long days of angry sea and sky,
The magic isle rose up from out the blue
Like a mirage, vague, dimly seen at first,
At first seen dimly through the mist; and then --
Groves of acacia; slender leaning stems
Of palm-trees weighted with their starry fronds;
Airs that, at dawn, had from their slumber risen
In bowers of spices; between shelving banks,
A river through whose limpid crystal gleamed,
Four fathoms down, the silvery, rippled sand;
Upon the bluff a square red tower, and roofs
Of cocoa fibre lost among the boughs;
Hard by, a fort with crumbled parapet.
These took the fancy captive ere we reached
The longed-for shores; then swiftly in our thought
We left behind us the New World, and trod
The Old, and in a sudden vision saw
Columbus wandering from court to court,
A mendicant, with kingdoms in his hands.

A.F. or T.L: Annie Adams Fields, to whom Jewett gave the
nickname T.L. See Correspondents.

two invalids: Probably these are the mothers of Aldrich and
Lilian. Aldrich's mother died at the end of June. See Correspondents.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers,
119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich,
1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry
Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another
hand, is a circled number: 2751.

BROOKLYN, L.I., June 20th189 6
[Underlined portions of the date filled in ink]

[End of letterhead]

My dear Miss Jewett --

[Inserted in pencil between lines in another
hand: Sarah
Mary J ?]

I am informed ---- not however on your
authority that a celebrated adventuress -- of whom I tell in my
"Colonial Dames and Goodwives" viz: Eliza Wilson, who masqueraded
under the name of Princess Caroline Matilda, Duchess of
Brownstonburges &c &c -- died in Berwick Maine about
1775.* I write to you asking you the name of some person in
that town -- of antiquarian tastes, to whom I

[2 penciled and circled in another hand
in left bottom margin]

[ Page 2 ]

could write and learn of the end of her days . -- or in fact
any other information about her.

I had hoped ere this to meet you -- for I am
told you are one of the fair "littery fellers" (as Senator Cameron
said of Lowell)* who are satisfying as ^an^ acquaintance.
The few whom I have met -- of "the art and mystery" of book-craft
-- were most distinctly disappointing. Miss Wilkins was
interesting -- [fair?] however -- from being as I
thought she would be --

I am very cordially yours
Alice Morse Earle

June 20th. 1896

[In pencil in another hand, bottom margin: Taken from
Sun dials and roses of yesterday.

Alice Morse Earle]

Notes"Colonial Dames and Goodwives" viz: Eliza
Wilson: Colonial
Dames
and Goodwives (1895) tells the story of Sarah
Wilson (b. 1754), though Earle seems clearly to have named her
"Eliza" in this letter (pp. 166-72). A convicted and
transported thief, Wilson escaped her seven years servitude in
1771 in Maryland and assumed the identity of Princess Susannah
Caroline Matilda, Marchioness de Waldegrave, sister to Britain's
Queen Charlotte, the victim of her theft. Earle believes
she may have appeared in Massachusetts in 1775 under the name
Caroline Augusta Harriet, Duchess of Brownstonburges.
An on-line account of Sarah
Wilson says that after being exposed and returned to
servitude, she escaped a second time, married a British officer
and eventually lived out a respectable life in the area of the
Bowery, New York.

"littery fellers" (as Senator Cameron said of Lowell):
The
New Castle Herald of New Castle, Pennsylvania (Friday,
August 27, 1920 p. 20), published a widely
reprinted column on the administration of U.S. President
Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893). Here it was reported that
in 1877, "To the disgust of 'practical politicians' he
[Hayes] 'threw away' a high-class foreign mission on a man like
James Russell Lowell, "a dashed literary feller," as Senator
Cameron said." In 1877, this almost certainly would have
been Senator
Simon Cameron (1799-1889) of Pennsylvania.
For more on Lowell, see Correspondents.

Miss Wilkins: Mary
Eleanor
Wilkins Freeman (October 31, 1852 - March 13, 1930) was a
19th-century American author of novels and short stories, such
as A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891). Sun dials and roses of yesterday: Earle's
Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday (1902).

I [ am corrected ] much
pleased at hearing of your collegiate honors -- and especially
(from some one who was present,) of the delightful and hearty
applause. How I should have clapped my hands and pounded if I
had been there!! Did the boys use to pound their feet on the
floor in Portsmouth? Only a very

[ Page 2 ]

great moment on the stage of the village hall ^here^
wins such expression here. Anything that does you and your
lovely work honor wakes something very good and unspeakable in
my heart. I should have seen the author of a poem called Elmwood
and a story called a Bad Boy* and other poems and other stories,
too many to count here -- stand up in the Sanders Theatre,* and

[ Page 3 ]

I should have been so glad to think he [ and corrected
] I were friends ---

= I hope that there may be a little
better news from your two old invalids* -- that these are days
of less pain and discomfort. I think so often of you and Lilian*
waiting and watching there. I am glad you are out in the country
and not in town. With love to you both.

Yours most affectionately

S. O. J.

Notes

Elmwood ... Bad Boy: Aldrich's The Story of a Bad Boy
(1870) and his memorial poem to James Russell Lowell (d. 1891),
"Elmwood."

Sanders Theater: Harvard University commencement
exercises in 1896 took place in Sanders Theater. There
on June 24, Thomas Bailey Aldrich received an honorary Master of
Arts degree.

two old invalids: Probably these are the mothers of
Aldrich and his wife, Lilian. See Correspondents.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers,
119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich,
1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry
Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another
hand, is a circled number: 2749.

This letter appeared in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne
Jewett (1911), Transcribed by Annie Adams Fields,
with minor changes in punctuation. Below is her
transcription.

My dear Friend, -- I am much pleased
at hearing of your collegiate honors, and especially (from some
one who was present) of the delightful and hearty applause. How
I should have clapped my hands and pounded if I had been there!!
Did the boys use to pound their feet on the floor in Portsmouth?
Only a very great moment on the stage of the village hall wins
such expression here. Anything that does you and your lovely
work honor wakes something very good and unspeakable in my
heart. I should have seen the author of a poem called "Elmwood,"
and a story called "A Bad Boy,"* and other poems and other
stories, too many to count here, stand up in the Sanders
Theatre,* and I should have been so glad to think he and I were
friends.

I hope that there may be a little
better news from your two old invalids* -- that these are days
of less pain and discomfort. I think so often of you and Lilian*
waiting and watching there. I am glad you are out in the country
and not in town. With love to you both.

Sarah Wyman Whitman to SOJ

June 26, 1896.

Last night having 16,000 letters and
jobs to do, I turned aside and just, first, read the last
chapters from that most real country where someone is living
with the Pointed Firs.* Just altogether beautiful I call it,
dear, and wish to tell you so, because there is gratitude, and
then the heart's gratitude, that strange deep joy of the
soul at touch or sight of a new sympathy with the soul's life; I
love to have you write and write in these levels; where star and
pebble make part of the divine chord. . . . I am working as hard
as I can, with no intention of ever stopping, if I can help it,
this side heaven.

Notes

Pointed Firs: Sarah Orne
Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896).

Dear Friend your letter gives me the comfort of
knowing that weakness and age are at an end forever for your dear
mother and that her kind an gentle life is done as far as this
world goes. Whatever change has come must be fore the better since
she herself put no hindrance in the way. All this I felt so little
while ago when the same loss touched me

[ Page 2 ]

that my heart is full of instant comprehension. I now how
different this loss is from any other -- as long as ones mother
lives the sense of being lovingly protected never fails, and one
is always a child -- there is a strange sense of being alone in
the world for the first time.

When a larger life opens for those who are
nearest and dearest

[ Page 3 ]

it seems as if a larger life opened for us too. I sometimes
remember what Sir Thomas Browne said -- about joining both lives
together and living one but for the other -- "For seeing there is
something of us that must still live on:" he begins* -- I have not
seen the page for a long time, but in such days the words come
back. It makes a great change in ones life, but it is a change for
the better. I have

[ Page 4 ]

never felt so near to my mother or kept such a sense of her love
for me and mine for her as I have since she died. There are no
bars of shyness or difference or inexpressiveness or carelessness,
it seems as if I had never known my mother before.

But it is no use to try to write these things,
if I were with you I should just take hold of your hand and not
say anything and so I do that now.

With love to you and Lilian*

Yours ever sincerely

S. O. J.

Notes

same loss: Aldrich's mother, Sarah, died on about 26
June 1896. Jewett's mother died in October 1891.

Sir Thomas Browne: Sir Thomas Browne
(1605-1682). Jewett uses this quotation in at least two
other writings: "The Foreigner" and in her father's
obituary. In the final paragraph of Browne's "Letter to a Friend," (1690), he says:

Time past is gone like a shadow; make Times to come,
present; conceive that near which may be far off; approximate
thy last Times by present Apprehensions of them: live like a
Neighbour unto Death, and think there is but little to come. And
since there is something in us that must still live on, joyn
both Lives together; unite them in thy Thoughts and Actions, and
live in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth the Purposes
of this Life, will never be far from the next; and is in some
manner already in it, by an happy Conformity, and close
Apprehension of it.

"Letter to a Friend" was largely reproduced in Christian Morals (1716), where the
passage occurs in the last paragraph, this time somewhat closer to
Jewett's wording:

Time past is gone like a Shadow; make time to come
present. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions
of them: be like a neighbour unto the Grave, and think there is
but little to come. And since there is something of us that will
still live on, Join both lives together, and live in one but for
the other. He who thus ordereth the purposes of this Life will
never be far from the next, and is in some manner already in it,
by a happy conformity, and close apprehension of it. And if, as
we have elsewhere declared, any have been so happy as personally
to understand Christian Annihilation, Extasy, Exolution,
Transformation, the Kiss of the Spouse, and Ingression into the
Divine Shadow, according to Mystical Theology, they have already
had an handsome Anticipation of Heaven; the World is in a manner
over, and the Earth in Ashes unto them.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers,
119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich,
1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry
Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another
hand, is a circled number: 2752.

Thank you so much for your delightful
letter. I had an attack of wishing I could fly to Folly
Cove* and take the place of some of the artists who had left me
room, but this July is full of plots and plans and I am going away
next week for a few days in an Eastward direction with

[ Page 2 ]

A. F.* We are going to stay a few days with the Aldriches*
and then I shall leave her to go elsewhere and I shall come home
again to go away with my sister Mrs. Eastman & Theodore.* --
Theodore took his preliminaries last week -- it was a great
excitement for the family!

I wish that I were writing as much as you are
painting

[ Page 3 ]

-- perhaps the Clam* would kindly assist me if I were in his
neighborhood! It has been delightful weather and not the
least delightful part has been these comfortable rainy days which
I suppose you must have minded a good deal. I wish I could see
what you are doing: It sounds so very nice all about the
sketches. Mrs.

[ Page 4 ]

Fields remembers Folly Cove, and sighs for Pigeon Cove "when it
was all like that" ----- I am obliged to confess that I have never
been beyond Gloucester, and there is a standing grievance that
once when I was away ^from Manchester^ a party was made to take
the little Danas* to the end of the railroad so that they*
saw Pigeon Cove and its neighborhood while I did not. It
stands for a Carcassonne* at present, but

[ Page 5 ]

What would life be with without

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick Maine

[ End letterhead ]

a Carcassonne let us ask !!

-- I am glad that you were pleased with
my note of acceptance (!) of the rabbit. I thought
it was a fine letter of its sort, but nothing to be
compared with the rabbit itself.

I had a nice letter from Mrs. Howe* the
other day from Venice, but it has not

[ Page 6 ]

seemed to me as if she had been in very good spirits all this
winter. Do you feel that in her letters? ---- or is it only
my own imagination? I hope it does not mean that she is not
well but she speaks of going to places and doing things and all
that.

Yes. Mrs. Fields & I are going to Mrs.
Cabot's* in

[ Page 7 ]

August to make a [ deleted word ] visit but I haven't seen
my way to The Shore except at that time. I shall be sure to
see you then and it will be nice ^to^ be near neighbors. I
am so glad to hear of Miss King's* being better. I
did not get to see them at all which made me feel sorry -- last
winter, but then I didn't

[ Page 8 ]

really have my "winter" except a fortnight or so in March did I?
-------

Good bye dear Loulie. I really wish that
I could look over your shoulder this minute to see what you are
painting, and I am ever your affectionate friend

S.O.J.

O
O
O*

Notes

1891: Jewett's date is difficult to read. Columbia's
archivist has read the date as 1891, but on July1, 1891, Jewett
was deeply involved in Berwick Academy centennial. She may
have written 1895 or 1896. As she reports in the letter that
her nephew, Theodore, has just taken his preliminary exams for
entering Harvard University in 1897, it seems very likely that the
letter was composed in 1896, or perhaps in 1895 if he took them
very early.

Mrs. Eastman & Theodore ... preliminaries: Carrie
Eastman and her son, Theodore. See Correspondents.
That Theodore has taken his preliminary exams tends to confirm
that this letter is from the year or two before he entered Harvard
University in the fall of 1897.

Clam: Presumably, Dresel has reported painting a
clam, or eating them while painting. Jewett seems to be
joking about the inspirational value of clams.

Pigeon Cove: Pigeon Cove on Cape Ann in Massachusetts is
roughly 10 miles north of Gloucester, MA.

little Danas: Jewett and Fields were friends of
Richard Henry Dana III (1851-1931), who had married Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow's daughter, Edith, and lived near the
Longfellows and the Horsfords at 113 Brattle Street in
Cambridge. See Correspondents.
The little Danas would be their children, who were close in age to
Theodore Eastman.

they: Jewett underline this word heavily
twice.

Carcassonne: Almost certainly Jewett refers to the ancient
town in southern France, but it is not clear what she means
by this reference, except perhaps, to a place she wishes to visit
someday.

O: At the bottom of page 8, Jewett has added a
line of three spaced circles.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Columbia University
(New York) Library in Special Collections, Jewett.
Transcription from a microfilm copy and annotation by Terry
Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright

2nd of July [1896]1
South Berwick.
Maine.

Dear Mrs Wheelwright

Thank you so much for your kind note. I have been meaning to
write to you and to say how sorry I am that I see no chance of
accepting such a delightful invitation. It would add to the
pleasure to having have [so transcribed] Rose2
for company, but indeed I should like very much to see you and
dear Mr. Wheelwright and to stay with you in your home house, [so
transcribed] while you must know by this time the depth of
my feelings about the coast of Maine! This is a very busy summer
for me and I am not likely to get far from Berwick -- at least I
must be within easy reach of the Riverside Press, and I am surer
of giving up some engage-ments that I have already made than I
am of adding to them and being able to keep a promise. -- It is
not enough to get a long story ready for the magazine=now [so
transcribed] I am making some changes for the book, and it
is very slow work going over so much material and doing it twice,
once for the printing here and once for London where I ought to
have sent the sheets long ago. And when all that is done, I must
lay the ghost of my conscience about some short stories, very
long overdue. I hope that you will not think that I am
making excuses -- they are Solemn Reasons if ever there were
any! As winter comes on I am going to begin an idle holiday, and
then everybody else will be busy and I may get nobody to play
with!

With love and thanks and
sincere wishes that I could come

Yours most truly

Sarah O. Jewett.

Notes

1 From the reference to working on the London and
Boston editions later in the letter, it is my guess that 1896 is
the date of this letter. The book must be The Country of the
Pointed Firs, since it was the only book of Jewett's to be
published simultaneously both in Boston and London.

2 Rose Lamb was both a business associate and
friend of Annie Fields, with whom Jewett edited The Letters
of Celia Thaxter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1895).
Celia Thaxter was a popular poet and children's writer.
See Correspondents.

The manuscript of this letter is in the collection of the
Miller Library of Colby College, Waterville, ME. The
transcription first appeared in Scott Frederick Stoddart's Ph.D.
dissertation at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected
Letters
of Sarah Orne Jewett, copyright by Stoddart, 1988.
Annotation is by Stoddart, supplemented where appropriate by Terry
Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Annie Adams Fields

Sunday, 5th July. [1896]*

. . . I have been reading the
beginning of "The Pearl of Orr's Island"* and finding it just as
clear and perfectly original and strong as it seemed to me in my
thirteenth or fourteenth year, when I read it first. I never
shall forget the exquisite flavor and reality of delight that it
gave me. I do so long to read it with you. It is
classical-historical -- anything you like to say, if you can
give it high praise enough. I haven't read it for ten years at
least, but there it is! Alas, that she couldn't finish
it in the same noble key of simplicity and harmony; but a poor
writer is at the mercy of much unconscious opposition. You must
throw everything and everybody aside at times, but a woman made
like Mrs. Stowe cannot bring herself to that cold selfishness of
the moment for one's work's sake, and the recompense for her
loss is a divine touch here and there in an incomplete piece of
work. I felt at the funeral* that none of us could really know
and feel the greatness of the moment, but it has seemed to grow
more great to me ever since. I love to think of the purple
flowers you laid on the coffin.

I hope the York visit will be worth
while. I look forward to seeing Mrs. Lawrence* more than
anything, and to the funny Indians, and the lights across the
harbor at night. I am so glad you have seen the little place and
know where I shall be.

Notes

1896: Because this letter seems to have been written
soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe's funeral, the date must be 1896.
Stowe died on July 1, 1896 and, according to the New
York
Times, her funeral took place on July 3.
The Pearl of Orr's Island: Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
is best known for Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852); she published
The Pearl of Orr's Island in 1862.

the funeral: Harriet Beecher Stowe died on 1 July
1896.

Mrs. Lawrence: One possibility for Mrs. Lawrence's
identity is Julia Lawrence. "William Lawrence (1850–1941)
was elected as the 7th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of
Massachusetts (1893–1927). Lawrence was the son of the notable
textile industrialist Amos Adams Lawrence and a member of the
influential Boston family, founded by his great-grandfather and
American revolutionary, Samuel Lawrence. His grandfather was the
famed philanthropist Amos Lawrence" (Wikipedia).
He
and his wife, Julia (1853?-1900), summered in York, ME.
Another possibility is Elizabeth Chapman
Lawrence (1825-1905), the second wife of Timothy Bigelow
Lawrence. See notes for SOJ to Sara Norton, September 16,
1908, and E.L., the Bread Box Papers: The High Life of a
Dazzling Victorian Lady: a Biography of Elizabeth Chapman
Lawrence (1983) by Helen Hartman Gemmill. Daughter of
Henry Chapman (1804-1891), a Pennsylvania congressman, she was a
popular and cosmopolitan woman who, after her marriage, moved in
the same circles as Annie Fields and Jewett and corresponded with
Sarah Wyman Whitman.

Such a nice day -- out all day
up in the Carter Notch* direction, trout-fishing, with the long
drive there and the long drive home again in time for supper. It
was a lovely brook and I caught seven good trout and one small
one -- which eight trout-persons you should have for your
breakfast if only you were near enough. It was not alone the
fishing, but the delightful loneliness and being out of doors.
Once I was standing on a log that had fallen across the stream,
and I looked round to see a solemn little squirrel who had
started to cross his bridge! and discovered me. He
looked as if he had never seen such a thing before, and he sat
up and took a good look, that squirrel did, and then discreetly
went back. You ought to have seen us looking at each other; I
didn't know there was anybody round either!! I went off alone
down the bed of the great brook, and was gone three hours, and
the boys went off another way.* It really did me good, and I got
wet and tired hopping from stone to stone, and liked it all as
much as ever.

Notes

Summer 1896: Annie Fields dates this letter in
August 1896, but this seems unlikely in that there is strong
evidence that Jewett was cruising the Maine coast with her nephew
at that time. See the notes for the following Summer 1896
letter to Louisa Dresel.

Carter Notch: Carter Notch
is a "high mountain pass through the White Mountains of New
Hampshire." Jewett apparently was staying at Stonehurst
Manor, which in 1896 was the North Conway private home of
Helen Bigelow Merriman, daughter of Erastus Bigelow, "the inventor
of the power loom, which revolutionized weaving." See Correspondents.
the boys: If Jewett is vacationing in New Hampshire
with boys, they are likely her nephew, Theodore Jewett Eastman,
and a friend. See Correspondents.

Thank you so much (and thank Miss
Brockhaus)* for this nice long letter. I am so sorry that
you should have had such a bad time with your eyes, but if it
sets you right for a long time to come it may not after all be lost
time. I am truly sorry that sketching isn't one of the things
with which you can amuse yourself in this seclusion! but that
would be asking too much from a kind oculist!! It seems so much
easier than reading or any minute work, but I suppose nothing is
really a greater strain, from the nature of its exactness. I
hope that you will come home well mended in every way and that
you and Ellis* are keeping cheerful company in France at this
moment.

I have been going on quietly. After my
visit to Mrs. Cabot* I was at home except for a few days at the
mountains -- at my friend Mrs. Merriman's1 at North
Conway -- where among other great pleasures I had a perfectly
delicious day fishing up Wild Cat Brook with noble results of
trout and the joys of solitude. I look back to a certain three
hours when I was all alone with a feeling of rest and of true
enchantment. Then after a day or two at home I came here and it
has been very pleasant -- a much less hurried and flurried
summer than one sometimes gets on the shore. You will know how I
enjoy seeing Mrs. Howe again, and we have had a visit from our
dear friend Miss Garrett of whom we are both so fond, A. F. and
I, and the Wolcotts have been here, the Governor and Mrs. Edith
and dear little Oliver,2 who all gave us much
satisfaction, each in their own way. Last week I went up to
Ashfleld for two days to the Nortons3 with Mrs.
Whitman* for company and we had a most dear and delightful time
in spite of the great heat which has put a bar to much wayfaring
inland and even seaward. I seldom have known so hot a week on
the shore here.

Mrs. Cabot is very well. I have not
seen her for nearly two weeks when we went to dine with the
Trimbles from whom she had a visit of a round fortnight.
"Plummy" is there now with The Baby and today she gives
a famous luncheon. I never have told you of a delightful
luncheon at your aunties while I was staying at Mrs. Cabot's and
which I enjoyed very much. Your Aunt Susie looked thinner (you
know I had not seen her in a long time) but she seemed very
bright and altogether in good spirits. Miss Huntington4
was there.

I am hurried very much now with
getting an end written to the Pointed Firs papers which are to
make a little book of themselves this autumn. I shall do very
little to the sketches as they stand but speak of my getting
away and add some brief chapters.5 I like to think
that much of it will be new to you. I have done very little work
this summer though I had such great plans. October and November
must make up!

I do not know that there is anything
more to write, Loulie dear, except to send you Mrs. Fields love
and mine and to say that we keep a welcome all ready for you. Oh
yes, Mrs. Fields was much troubled about your not receiving her
note in answer to the little package -- she was most eager that
you should know how much she cared for what you sent her and
sent it down by a special messenger to be sure that you had it
before you left home.

Yours most affectionately,

S. O. J.

Cary's Notes

1Helen Bigelow
Merriman (1844-1933), artist and author of books and essays on
painting and painters. She summered at Stonehurst, the
Bigelow estate at Intervale, New Hampshire. En route between
here and Boston she occasionally dropped in on the Jewetts
without notice.

2Roger Wolcott (1847-1900),
governor of Massachusetts in 1896-1898, married Edith, daughter
of the American historian William Hickling Prescott.

3Charles Eliot
Norton (1827-1908), professor of literature and the history of
fine arts at Harvard University, translator of Dante, and
co-editor of the North American Review. He had three
daughters -- Sara (Sally), Elizabeth (Lily), and Margaret.
Jewett often visited him and the girls at Shady Hill, their
Cambridge
home, as well as at this summer home in northwestern
Massachusetts.

4Possibly the same Miss A.
O. Huntington to whom Jewett wrote on April 15, 1895 (see
Fields, Letters, 113-114). See Correspondents.

5The first fifteen
numbered chapters of The Country of the Pointed Firs had
been
published In the Atlantic Monthly for January, March,
and July 1896. By this time she had submitted chapters XVI-XX,
which appeared in September 1896. Now she made no significant
verbal changes in the magazine text, but she supplied each
chapter with a title. and she combined the original chapters
XVIII and XIX into one, which she named "The Bowden Reunion."
The original chapter XX became chapter XIX in the book,
entitled, "The Feasts End." For the first edition of the book,
which came out in time for the Christmas season, Jewett supplied
two new chapters: XX. Along Shore; XXI. The Backward Glance. She
also wrote four other stories which pertain to CPF: "A
Dunnet Shepherdess," "William's Wedding," "The Queens Twin," and
"The Foreigner." These have been included in numerous editions,
in various order, after her death. Jewett herself never
interpolated any of them into her initial pattern.

Editor's Notes

Summer 1896: Richard Cary dates this
letter August 18, [1896]. However, this date seems very
likely to be incorrect. Elizabeth Silverthorne quotes
Jewett discussing her plans for completing The Country of
the Pointed Firs by 8 August of 1896 (p. 164).
Jewett says she then plans to cruise the Maine coast with her
nephew, Theodore Eastman. In letters to her sister,
Carrie, she writes about that cruise, which seems to take place
at virtually the same time that Cary places Jewett fishing in
the White Mountains. Furthermore, in this letter, Jewett
speaks of her work on finishing Country as still
planned, but not near completion. It would seem clear then
that she writes this letter and the next before August of
1896. However, it is difficult to be certain about this
sequence of events.

Trimbles ... "Plummy" is there now with The
Baby ... Your Aunt Susie: The identity of the
Trimbles is as yet unknown. A possible candidate is Walter
Underhill Trimble (7 March 1857 - 18 September 1926), a
New York lawyer and banker. Plummy and the baby are not
yet identified. "Aunt Susie" also is mysterious.
Dresel's mother, Anna Loring Dresel, had no sisters, and no
sister of Otto Dresel is known to have resided near
Boston. Louisa had an aunt, Helene Dresel (born circa
1842), who was the wife of Otto Dresel's brother Adolf (b.
September 27, 1822); she seems to have been living in California
at this time. Perhaps Jewett refers to Mrs. Susan Cabot,
implying a close bond of affection between Louisa and
Susan?

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, MS Am 1743 (50). This transcription by
Richard Cary appeared originally in "Jewett to Dresel: 33
Letters," Colby Library Quarterly 7:1 (March 1975), 13-49,
which gave permission to reprint it here. Notes are by Cary,
with additions by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Mary Bucklin Davenport Claflin

Wednesday morning
[ late summer 1896 ]*
Charles Street

Dear Mrs. Claflin

I came to town for a few days just as you
kindly sent your note and the books to Berwick to find me. I
dont believe in acknowledging books before I read them -- as a
general thing! -- but I must thank this time and tell you
now how much I like the stories when I come up again

[ Page 2 ]

and can see you. Mary* writes me that Mother* has been
enjoying your reminiscences* very much and that alone gives me
great pleasure in having them.

I am glad to say that dear Mother is much more
comfortable than she has been and that she gets out to drive in
pleasant weather &c. but she is

[ Page 3 ]

still very far from strong and we are always trying to take great
care of her.

I wish that we could have sent for you to come
to Berwick this summer, but we had to be very quiet of course,
nearly all the time.

With my best thanks and much love

Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett

Notes

1896: As the note below indicates, this letter is
dated in relation to Mrs. Jewett's health and the publication date
of Mary Claflin's Under the Old Elms. It is possible
that the letter was composed in 1895, or perhaps at another time
when Mrs. Jewett was unwell and Mrs. Claflin had published one of
her three biographical books.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Correspondents.

your reminiscences: Given that Jewett's mother,
Caroline Perry, is seriously ill and that she died in the spring
of 1897, it seems reasonable to guess that the book Jewett
mentions is Claflin's Under the Old Elms (1895).

The manuscript of this letter is held by Rutherford B. Hayes
Presidential Center in the Governor William and Mary
Claflin Papers, GA-9, Box 4, Miscellaneous Folder J, Ac
950. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Robert Underwood Johnson

Manchester, Mass.
Tuesday
[August 18, 1896]

My dear friend:

I am sadly ashamed to have kept this
advance copy so long!1 I have been at Ashfield for a
few days and I forgot to send it back as I meant to do last
Thursday without fail. It turns upon my desk with a reproachful
countenance. Thank you so much for sending it to me. I enjoyed
it even more than I expected, which is as much as can possibly
be said.

This will be the best of days at
York. I know such weather well there.

With best thanks and remembrance.

Yours ever sincerely,

S. O. Jewett

You couldn't do better than to print
Mr. Norton's address2 at the dedication of a tablet
to G. W. Curtis!3 It was most beautiful and I say it
who heard it at Ashfield last week. I wish you had been there.

Notes

1 In a letter from York
Harbor, Maine, dated August 8, 1896, Johnson wrote: "Here are
the sheets of the last part, and welcome! There is nothing more
to be done about the paper of Mme. Blanc's, thank you!"
(Houghton Library, Harvard) "About French Children," by Th.
Bentzon, illustrated by Maurice Boutet de Monvel, appeared in
the Century, LII (October 1896), 803-822. 2 Charles Eliot Norton
(1827-1908) was co-editor of North American Review from
1863 to 1868, professor of literature and the history of fine
arts at Harvard University, translator of Dante, and editor of
George William Curtis' Orations and Addresses (New
York, 1894), 3 vols. Miss Jewett often visited Norton and his
daughters at Shady Hill, their Cambridge residence, as
well as at Ashfield, their summer home.
Johnson did not respond to Miss
Jewett's suggestion but the address received publication in the
Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, August 13, 1896,
and in Norton's privately printed Memorials to TwoFriends,
James
Russell Lowell: 1819-1891, George William Curtis: 1824-1892
(New York, 1902). 3 George William Curtis
(1824-1892), author, orator, and adviser to Presidents, was
editor of Harper's Weekly from 1863 to 1892. Curtis
also maintained a summer home in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and
took active interest in local affairs. In the Ashfield Town Hall
is a bronze tablet to his memory. The installation ceremony was
held on Wednesday, August 12, 1896.

This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah
Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby College Special
Collections, Waterville, Maine.

SOJ to Carrie Jewett Eastman

Monday Morning
[ August 1896 ]*

Dear Carrie

The weather promises much fairer than I
feared and I dont doubt we shall make a good run -- I hope
Theodore* will have a good time -- it will be a pretty
experience for a person. Mrs. Fields* & I are going
to Mr. Higginsons* to lunch this noon and I hope to find him
here when I get back. I do so hope that we shant

[ Page 2 ]

strike across to Portland way out! -- I desire to pass Boon
Island!!* and I hope that I may feel to enjoy that and
all other passing sights.

We had a quiet day yesterday. in the
morning we went down into the woods a while and it rained in
the afternoon [and ? ] we went over to Mrs. Howes* to
dine at night and had a very pretty time. Today I am
going to count my spare minutes

[ Page 3 ]

and get on with some copying as best I can -- It is
funny -- When I first heard about Mr. Merriman* and that he
was so able & had evidently stayed just about where he
was! I said to myself that he had some clog or other
upon his life -- and I wondered if he had any sort of wife to
take hold with him.

Evidently she isn't able ( "an able boat")*
And I am so sorry because though Mrs. [Greenlaw ?]*
appears well, she never has been minister's wife to
the Academy.*

[ Page 4 ]

Perhaps she will now. What does John* think of them?

I do hope that I can either come home by
rail from the v'yg'e or be set ashore at Portland or
Portsmouth to come home for a day or two. Next week I
shall be very much taken up here, but I count on getting home
to see a sister and do some things first.

I took in Mary Wilkinson the full
size. You must have known it would be so -- I hope
Emerson coped with her case, and I should like to see
her & Columby* on the water. They would both sit aft
to be near together and the bow of the boat would be all out
of water.

[ Up the left margin and then down
the top margin of page 1 ]

I can picture it. Goodbye with much love

from Sarah.

With love to [Jimson ? ],* and John and all.

Notes

August 1896: This date is uncertain, based on
Elizabeth Silverthorne's statement that in August 1896, after
Jewett completed The Country of the Pointed Firs, she and
her nephew, Theodore, took a cruise together along the coast of
Maine. In Sarah Orne Jewett, Silverthorne quotes
Jewett saying that she plans to complete her book by 8 August, and
then she will "take a fresh look" at the setting she used for her
novel (p. 164).

Boon Island: It seems likely that Jewett refers to Boon Island, off the coast of southern
Maine, near Cape Neddick. It would be interesting because it
is the site of the tallest lighthouse in New England (1855).
The letter seems to imply that Jewett is
writing from Annie Fields's at Manchester-by-the-Sea, and that she
and Theodore, plan a short sail -- presumably with friends owning
a yacht -- from there toward Portland, ME.

Mrs. Howes: Probably this is Alice Greenwood Howe.
See Correspondents.

Mr. Merriman: Jewett corresponded with Helen B.
Merriman, wife of Rev. Daniel Merriman, but this does not seem
likely to be the Mr. Merriman she refers to in this letter.
Assistance is welcome.

able boat: These two words are double underlined in
the manuscript. Presumably the phrase is in quotation marks
to place it in the context of boating terms, where an able boat is
one that is especially seaworthy.

Greenlaw ... wife to the Academy: The transcription
of "Greenlaw" is uncertain. It also is unclear to which
academy Jewett refers. Ordinarily, one would assume she
speaks of the Berwick Academy in South Berwick, ME, but the names
"Merriman" and "Greenlaw" have has yet no known connection with
the administration of the Berwick Academy. A second likely
possibility is the Phillips Exeter Academy, but again, there is no
known likely relationship. Assistance is welcome.

Mary Wilkinson .. Emerson ... Columby: These people
remain unidentified, and the meaning of this passage remains
obscure. The best-known "Columby" in the South Berwick area
during Jewett's lifetime is Columbia Warren (1817-1908), who appears as
a main character in Gladys Hasty Carroll's (1904-1999) Dunnybrook.

Jimson: This transcription is uncertain, though a
Jimson is mentioned in SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett and Carrie Jewett
Eastman, 12 July 1894, this person has not been identified.
Assistance is welcome.

The manuscript of this letter is held by Historic New England in
Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett to Caroline Augusta Jewett Eastman,
Jewett Family Papers: MS014.01.01.04. Transcribed and
annotated by Terry Heller. Coe College.

SOJ to Carrie Jewett Eastman

Thursday
[ August 1896 ]*

Dear Carrie

I must put in this brief note -- there is not
any sign of clearing weather but we came ashore in the morning and
have after a little drive up the coast to the harbor store
we have spent the day at Mrs. Richardsons.* And I am going
to sleep ashore tonight as it is wet for womenfolks
getting back to the yacht --

[ Page 2 ]

We meant to sail for home this morning but there was a white
fog. Mrs. Aldrich* was going to be put off at Portland with
me and we were going to stop over at home! but I dont know how it
will be now. I dare say we shall go right to Boston if it is
smooth enough -- It is hard to find out

[ Page 3 ]

about plans when you are yachting. I have seldom seen Mr. T.
Stubs show such unaffected signs of enjoyment, & he has
learned much that pleases him about [ ginnets?]*
and kinds of knots, & is so busy all the time. We went
over he & I, to Martinsville* yesterday but I didn't see Mrs.
[Bachelder ? ] *-- she

[ Page 4 ]

had gone berrying Carrie.

We were so glad to get your nice letter
just now -- & one from Mary,* but I am disappointed that she [
would get none this week ? ] not until Monday when [deleted
word between lines.] I shall have to be back at
Manchester.* In haste with much love

Sarah --

& love to Susy.*

Notes

August 1896: This date is uncertain. This
letter seems to follow up on the above letter probably from August
1896, in that it recounts part of a trip Jewett and her nephew
made along the Maine coast, which Elizabeth Silverthorne in Sarah
Orne Jewett places in August1896 (164).

Mrs. Richardsons: According to George Carey's "The
Rise and Fall of Elmore," "William Richardson, known to his
intimates as “Will Dear ... had made a small fortune when he
invented the clothing snap, the popular forerunner of the zipper,
and with some of his money he built Seawoods, a 13-room house that
faced the ocean [near Tenants Harbor, ME]. Richardson’s
sister-in-law married Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the editor of The
Atlantic Monthly, and soon his large rambling cottage, The
Crags just to the north of Seawoods, was drawing to Elmore such
literary luminaries as Mark Twain and Sarah Orne Jewett."

Manchester: Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA, where
Fields had her summer home.

Susy: It seems likely that this is Susan Jameson
Jewett (1857-1954). Her mother was named Sarah Orne Jewett
(1820-1864), as was a sister who died in infancy (1864-5).
See Pirsig, "The Jewetts of Portland Street" (2004).

The manuscript of this letter is held by Historic New England in
Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett to Caroline Augusta Jewett Eastman,
Jewett Family Papers: MS014.01.01.04. Transcribed and
annotated by Terry Heller. Coe College.

SOJ to Lilian Woodman Aldrich

York Harbor Maine
Tuesday [ August 1896 ]*

[ Begin apparently deleted letterhead
]

South Berwick.
Maine.

[ End apparently deleted letterhead
]

Dear Lilian

I got home all right after a long day's
journey, but I enjoyed it very much {,} especially the yacht
voyage to Rockland -- We bounced about finely before we got to
White Head.* I am afraid that Talbot* had a rainy evening for his
pleasuring. It was such a pleasure to see something of him as I
have not done before for so long.

[ Page 2 ]

I wish that he could stop here some time, with
on his eastward journeys; it is very pleasant and gay for all the
young people and I am sure that he would find many friends. I did
not have much time to look about me in Berwick as we came on here
as soon as possible, but you may be sure that I was full of
stories about Monhegan and my lovely visit to the

[ Page 3 ]

Crags.* You cant think how much I enjoyed it or how glad I am to
have seen you and dear T.B.* again. I dont know when I have
had four days of such real pleasure.

I suppose that A.F.* is on her way to Bar
Harbor now and I shall end this note to begin one to her.

With dear love to you both

Always your affectionate

S. O. J.

Notes

August 1896: This speculative date is based upon the
fact that Jewett could not have visited the Crags until 1895 or
later and that we have tentative evidence that Jewett did make a
short yachting visit to the Tenants Harbor, ME area in August of
1896, presumably after putting the finishing touches on The
Country of the Pointed Firs, which came out later in the
year. See Elizabeth Silverthorne, Sarah Orne Jewett
(p. 164).

White Head: Presumably, Jewett refers to Whitehead Island,
along the northeastern coast of Maine, about 10 miles by air south
of Rockland, ME.

Talbot: The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and Charles
were born in 1868.

the Crags: In Crowding Memories,
Lilian Aldrich says the Crags, their summer place in Tenants
Harbor, ME, was built in the summer of 1893 (p. 270).

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers,
119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich,
1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry
Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another
hand, is a circled number: 2727.

South Berwick Maine
29 Septr 1896

Messrs. H. O. Houghton & Co.

Gentlemen.

Will you please ask the proofreader to see that
the ^title of^ the next before the last chapter of The Pointed
Firs* is changed from Poor Dear to Along Shore?

In haste

Yours very truly
Sarah O. Jewett

Notes

Firs: This name change was made before the
publication of Jewett's 1896 novel, The Country of the Pointed
Firs.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library,
University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne
Jewett Papers. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe
College.

Caroline Jewett Eastman to Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Rice
Jewett

[1 October 1896 ]*

Thursday night.

Dear Sisters,

I am glad indeed of your letter tonight and the
dear one from Billy, and a nice one from Dave Gilman* who wants to
spend Saturday night with me -- as he is coming up Saturday on his
bicycle, if pleasant, of course, and going on to Exeter
Sunday. So if you will tell "Mary Ann Boyd" to make your
little rooms ready for him please -- if he comes. I shall be
glad to see Dave. I don't expect to

[ Page 2 ]

get home till Saturday night at six. Mrs. [ Kidner? ]
may come tonight -- but I don't believe it. Yet the maids
say tomorrow night anyway. I think I shall take the big
trunk over tomorrow and get the things out, and finish Saturday --
And Theodore will go to church with the Perrys Sunday, as Eliz. is
at [ Groveland ?].* So there will be a seat for him.
I think Theodore is very happy in his school, and will "catch on"
very easily and quickly, being

[ Page 3 ]

friends with Neil Fairchild the first one -- and they evidently
all straggled across home together. He said the little while
they were in school this morning, they all talked about
foot-ball! The teachers were setting classes [ ve ?
]. and Thider seems to take heart, tho not much is said, it being
a serious occasion. Theodore came home even before Eva left
this morning.* I did have a lovely time with her, she being
funny and her very dearest beside. Thider & I went down
town [parting at Steavens ?]*, and I

[ Page 4 ]

went to [Hoveys ?] too.* I have to be awfully
careful with my foot out doors, its so weak, to say nothing of [ unrecognized
word ] from using it. I met with [ 'Pessy / Percy /
Persy' ? ] staring ahead of her, and told her to "drink
only [foaming ?]" and then she [spluttered ?] and
saw me. I never saw her look as she did, except at the
'occasion' at Exeter, when she was overheated. Sometimes she
looks [big ?], yet a lady, but today!*

Oh, if only we had been as a "family" at
Keiths.* It was was splendid, and I longed for
Seddie. Yet Mary* today would have thought well

[ Page 5 ]

of it. It was a good thing for Theodore to do, to say
nothing of his mother! and we did have a beautiful time -- I
kept wishing you could have seen a nice real old country woman
along the row from us, leaning forward a little with her mouth
wide open to take in more, perfectly wrapped in
amusement. I was actually glad when she was moved to
laugh hard -- [ as / at ? ] some of the living
pictures in tights. & a splendid skirt-clog girl*
must have been a question -- to the poor soul

[ Page 6 ]

as I think she was of the "Free will"* persuasion.

Theodore & I dressed before dinner, and
^after^ then went to the Perrys, where we had a great welcome tho'
it was evidently a cross to Thider that Elizabeth was away.
Georgie* has been so busy fixing and straightening out the house
-- I thought -- we never should get away. Only think
of Ann [Davis's ?] fire.* What an occasion for
Stubbs to lose. I am wondering if [ Toby ?] came
tonight. Tell her she has got to wait -- for me.
Thider had [ unrecognized word ] of Bert*

[ Page 7 ]

today, who was on hand at school. Thider also called on
Talbot Aldrich,* who was very nice -- and said "come in and see a
fellow again [unrecognized marks] when you can.["] Mr
Pierce* was out. Theodore has been [waiting / writing ?],
and may have told you already. Yet it was almost ten when we
got home from the Perrys. & he was tired. I am
writing on a Harper* in my lap, and hurrying at that. So you
must "excuse bad writing.["] Oh, I keeping wishing you could
have been at Keiths -- it was very good & awfully bright &
funny,

[ Page 8 ]

and I hate to think of not having Thider [ unrecognized word
] go back, to be speaking about it. I hope the boy will soon
find he is to be comfortable and happy at the [ Kidners?],
and we shall really feel we have done the best thing. Give
my love to John and my household. They better give [ Tous ?]
the air before going to bed. Sometimes I think he takes
trips to the new city, he is gone so long. Yet it works well
in the end! With dearest love to you all.

Carrie

Eva guessed she would take take Mama as far as
Mt. Auburn this afternoon

[ Up the right margin of page 8 ]

for the air. [Triena?] is on the sea.

Notes

1 October 1896: This date is penciled in by an
HNE archivist. At the bottom of page 5 another date is
penciled in: 10 OCT 1896. 1 October 1896 fell on a Thursday.
According to Paula Blanchard, Sarah Orne
Jewett (2002) p. 305, Theodore transferred from the Berwick
Academy to the Noble
and
Greenough School in Dedham, MA, which is south of
Boston. This letter offers an account of his starting at the
new school.

Billy, ... Dave Gilman: Billy has not been
identified. Possibly he is Jewett's distant cousin William
Elbert Furber, son of Jewett correspondent, Cynthia Elvira Irwin
Furber.
For David Gilman, see Correspondents,
Alice Dunlap Gilman.

"Mary Ann Boyd": Mary Boyd does house-cleaning for the
Jewetts as indicated in other letters, but no further information
about her has been discovered. There was a Boyd family in
South Berwick, as indicated in Wendy Pirsig's The Placenames
of South Berwick (2007), p. 212, but the identity of this
person remains unknown. Also a mystery is why Carrie Eastman
puts the name in quotation marks.

church with the Perrys Sunday, as Eliz. is at [ Groveland ?]:
The
Perry family references here have not been sorted out. It
seems clear that Carrie Eastman, while establishing her son,
Theodore, at Noble and Greenough, is staying somewhere in the
Boston area with a Perry family, to which she probably is
connected on her mother's side. Members of the family seem
to include Georgie, who has been "fixing and straightening out the
house," and Elizabeth and Eva, both of whom seem to be younger
members of the family, probably daughters.
On this occasion, Elizabeth seems to be in
Groveland, MA, a town north of Boston, about 55 miles from Dedham.
No further information on this family has yet
been located, and assistance is welcome.

Steavens: This transcription is uncertain. The
text suggests that Steavens may refer to a store in downtown
Boston. Further information is welcome.

Hoveys: This is pure speculation. If the name
given is Hovey, then living in Boston in the 1890s were Charles
Henry Hovey (Civil War veteran and Harvard AB 1872) and Louise
C.
Perry Hovey. While no connection has been found between the
Jewett sisters' mother, Caroline Perry Jewett, and Louise C. Perry
Hovey, there may have been one. Their son, Carl (1875-1956),
graduated from Harvard in 1897.

Kidner ... Fairchild: These people remain
mysterious. However, in Theodore's Harvard class of 1901
were the following people:
Frederick C. Kidner, of Massachusetts, who
became a physician in Detroit, MI.Nelson
(Neil) Fairchild (1879-1906). He was the son of
Charles Fairchild, a Boston banker, and Elizabeth
Nelson Fairchild, a poet. The Fairchild family were
long-time friends of Sarah Orne Jewett. TheBrookline
Historial
(Massachusetts) Societyprovides
this suggestive sketch of the Sally Fairchild and her family:

Her father was a wealthy stock
broker and banker and her parents were frequent hosts of
prominent artists and writers. She never married and often
lived with her younger brother, Gordon: at St Paul’s School
where he ran the Upper School; in the Philippines; in Japan;
and, when he returned to Boston around 1930, at his house at
391 Beacon St., Boston. After he died at sea in 1932 she moved
to 241 Beacon St.
She made quite an impression on some very
famous people of that era. There are descriptions of her by
George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, George Santayana, the
Fabian leader Beatrice Webb, and the Shakespearean actress
Ellen Terry. Shaw took several photographs of her and
corresponded with her for many years. She also gave a young
Ethel Barrymore a letter of introduction to Shaw. Here is a
description from Gertrude Kittredge Eaton, in her
Reminiscences Of St. Paul's School: "Mrs. Fairchild had at one
time what might be called a salon, in Boston. She knew all the
interesting people of the day. She was one of the first to
appreciate Walt Whitman. John Singer Sargent was a great
friend, andpainted
many
pictures of Sally, who had lovely red hair. Red hair
fascinated Sargent. She was an early admirer of Robert Louis
Stevenson. When her husband went abroad one year, she told him
to look up young Stevenson and have Sargent paint his
portrait, which he did. Stevenson stayed with the Fairchilds
in Boston, and Gordon remembered sitting on the foot of his
bed while Stevenson told him stories. There are many letters
to the Fairchilds in the collected letters of Stevenson. "

Theodore: Theodore Eastman is Carrie Eastman's son,
also called Stubbs and Thider in this letter. See Correspondents.

Pessy ... today: This incident remains obscure in
part because of the difficulties of transcription.
Assistance is welcome.

Keiths: Benjamin
Franklin
Keith (1846 - 1914) was "an American vaudeville theater
owner, highly influential in the evolution of variety theater into
vaudeville.... In 1885 he joined Edward Franklin Albee II, who was
selling circus tickets, in operating the Boston Bijou Theatre.
Their opening show was on July 6, 1885. The theatre was one of the
early adopters of the continuous variety show which ran from 10:00
in the morning until 11:00 at night, every day. Previously, shows
ran at fixed intervals with several hours of downtime between
shows. With the continuous show, you could enter the theatre at
any time, and stay until you reached the point in the show where
you arrived."

skirt-clog girl: If this transcription is correct,
Carrie Eastman seems to refer to an act with a female clog dancer,
which a person of "Free Will" persuasion would find risqué.

"Free Will" persuasion: Presumably, Carrie refers to
the Free Will
Baptists. The Free Will Baptist church of South
Berwick was just a few steps from the Jewett home. In the
21st century, this denomination would be characterized as
fundamentalist and socially conservative.

Ann [Davis's ?] fire: Apparently there
was a fire in South Berwick at the home of Ann Davis near the
first of October in 1896. Further information is welcome.

wondering if [ Toby ?] came tonight.
This person is unknown, and the transcription of the name is
uncertain. Information is welcome.

Thider had [ visions ? ] of Bert: The
identity of Bert is unknown. Information is welcome.

Talbot Aldrich: Talbot Bailey Aldrich (1868 -
1957), a painter, is one of the twin sons of Thomas Bailey and
Lilian Aldrich. See Correspondents.

Harper on my lap: Presumably, Carrie is using a copy
of Harper's Magazine as backing for her paper as she
writes.

John ... [ Tous ?] the air before going
to bed: John probably is John Tucker, a Jewett family
employee. See Correspondents.
The reference to someone needing air before
going to bed and his traveling to the "new city" before returning
seems likely to refer to a pet dog, as in Touser. It is not
clear whether this is Carrie's dog or the Perrys'. Further
information is welcome.

Eva ... Mama ... Mt. Auburn: The people are not
yet identified, though an Eva is mentioned in other letters. See:
SOJ to Mary Rice Jewett [September 9, 1900]; SOJ to Elizabeth J.
Gilman [September 22, 1905]. So far, only one mutual
acquaintance of Fields and Jewett named Eva is Baroness Eva von
Blomberg; see Correspondents.
However, it seems unlikely that the seemingly young woman
mentioned here is the Baroness.
Mt. Auburn is a well-known cemetery about
14 miles from Dedham. It is the burial place of a number of
prominent Americans, including Massachusetts Senator Charles
Sumner and the clergyman Phillips Brooks.

[Triena?] is on the sea: The
transcription of this name is very uncertain and the person has
not been identified.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the archive of Historic
New England, Jewett Family Papers, MS014.02.01.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Sara Norton

Thursday night, [Autumn 1896].

Today we went out to the desired
Canterbury to the great Shaker convent,* which I have long
wished to visit: it is more like a monastery than Alfred,* and
in some ways more interesting. I found friends of our old
acquaintances there and heard the Alfred news. This great group
of old houses is on a high hill, quite Italian in its site, and
the views of the great lower country and the mountains beyond
are wonderful. The color was most splendid today, and the lights
and shadows chasing each other from yellow maple to brown oak.
It would be a perfect place to send children now and then, as we
used to think at Alfred. I shall love to tell you about it. I
was deeply touched at heart to find the old sisters knew my
stories ever so long ago, and were getting up a little
excitement about my being there. The girls and my cousins had a
great day, but such days are almost too much pleasure for my
heart to bear, the pathos, -- the joy of those faces, the
innocent gayety of their dull lives.

Notes

Fall 1896 ... Canterbury ... Shaker convent, ... Alfred:
Fields
dates this letter in 1897, but in Sarah Orne Jewett,
Blanchard says that in the fall of 1896, Jewett and Fields visited
the Shaker settlement at Canterbury, NH (p. 302). According
to M. F. Melcher, The Shaker Adventure (1968), the
community at Alfred, Maine was the smaller; founded in 1792 and
closing in 1931, the community had 70 members in 1874. The larger
community at Canterbury, New Hampshire was founded in 1792 and had
145 members in 1874.

I have really been working day and
night for weeks, the little portraits of the little children,
and then Dr. Mitchell appearing with a view to portraiture and
yet with a relish for Society;* these things have kept me on a
stretch not wholly admirable. However one got something out of
it, and some moments of intercourse with the children -- some
hints of the untried secrets of those little hearts have seemed
to me deep chapters in experience. But without time I will not
speak of the eternities.

Notes

Dr. Mitchell: Whitman is working
on a portrait of Silas Weir Mitchell
(1829-1914), one of the best-known American
physicians of the nineteenth century, famed for
his "rest cure" for nervous diseases such as
neurasthenia. He was the author of a pair of
historical novels as well as of poetry and
biography.

It was a great comfort to get that
dear letter and it gave me beside a swift impulse to go sailing
down the coast to Berwick. . . .* I did not do it; but
that is only an incident, the impulse was the large, round,
whole scheme. Now it's Sunday, and on Wednesday I shall strike
my tent and be off for the winter campaign, with a terrible
sense of weakness at the heart, but a great many straps and
buckles about the belt, wherewith I hope to make some stout
show.

Notes

Old Place: The Old Place,
Beverly Farms, between Beverly and Manchester-by-the-Sea
in MA., was the location of the Whitman summer home.

I had a talk with Mr. Putnam of the Public
Library yesterday and he asked me to say something to you about
the matter of your taking a position in the Catalogue Department
in course of time. He seems to think that he told us that you
had better make formal application when we [word deleted] saw
him last year, but I do not remember that it was so; I thought
that we were to wait and hear from him someday!

But however that may be, I think that he
wishes you to go through this form now, and you can go to the
Library to see him or write and ask him for directions. He
wished me to say that you would go in for a time to Grade B
which is on a [lowest] basis of eleven dollars a week &
rising from that -- but presently, finding you ready for
intelligent work in literary matters! you would go into Grade A
at increased rates. The work is from 9 to 5 o'clock with 24 days
vacation beside [word deleted] public holidays.*

I think that this is all he wished me to
say. For myself I think, as I said last year, and as Mrs. Fields
thinks & says too that once belonging to the corps of the
Library you would stand a chance of finding some [more
responsible &] particular piece of work and making it your
own. It must be looked after directly, now -- I should say -- to
please Mr. Putnam who wishes to put his wheels in motion! I was
afraid that he thought I had been remiss but I certainly did not
understand!

It seems very long since we have seen you --
I have been coming to town and going home again as fast as I
could run, but after a week at South Berwick now, I hope to be
here for a longer stretch --

Your most sincerely

Sarah O. Jewett

We were much interested a week ago Saturday
at seeing Mr. Day & a mandarin sitting together at a
Symphony concert!*

Notes

1896: This letter is dated by the preceding one
(See SOJ to Louise Imogen Guiney 5 December, 1895) since it was
written the year following their appointment in the Boston
Public Library to see Mr. Putnam . That it was written in
the autumn is indicated by Jewett's recent presence at a Boston
Symphony Orchestra concert, the subscription series of which
began in autumn for the 1896-7 season.
148 Charles Street was the address of the
Boston home of Annie Fields, widow of James T. Fields, the
publisher. Mrs. Fields willed Louise Guiney a half-share for
life in the annual interest derived from the sale of this house.
(A. L. S., Feb. 11, 1915 of LIG to R. Norton, in the Guiney
Collection in Dinand Library.)

The work is: Herbert Putnam did find a place for
Louise Guiney in the Boston Public Library and she worked in the
Catalogue Department from January 22, 1899 to December 27, 1900.
There "in our great Boston Public Library" she found the
atmosphere more congenial and her "daily chore" to her liking.

Mr. Day: Frederick Holland Day, mentioned in the
postscript, was, in Miss Guiney's words, "An old friend of mine,
an ex-publisher [Copeland and Day], a great bibliophile, and a
most distinguished amateur in photography and kindred
arts." "Fred Holland Day (1864 - 1933) was an American
photographer and publisher" Wikipedia.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Dinand Library of
Holy Cross College in the collection of materials of Louise
Imogen Guiney. The transcription by William L. Lucey, S.
J. appeared in "'We New Englanders': Letters of Sarah Orne
Jewett to Louise Imogen Guiney." Records of the American
Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 70 (1959):
58-64. In his transcription: "Words inserted above the
line by Miss Jewett have been lowered and bracketed; deleted
words have been bracketed and italicized or, when illegible, a
deletion has been indicated." Notes are by Lucey and
supplemented by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to an unidentified recipient*

148 Charles Street

Tuesday morning [ November 1896 ]*

Thank you so much for your most kind and dear note
dear friend -- This is what Susy Travers* and I both thought it,
for I sent it right away to her and she writes me this
morning. She was only here from noon on Thursday to eight
o’clock next morning when she went to Newport. I

[ Page 2 ]

found that nothing would give her more pleasure
than to see you again and we were both much disappointed not to
find you at home. We must talk about Susan one of those
days! I have known her a long time and have watched her
grow. You would delight in her real wit and honest brusque
ways and (what I can only call in this hurried moment!) her
individuality!!

Yours most affectionately Sarah O. Jewett

[ Page 3 ]

How delightful Dr Weir Mitchells new story
is! I really love it and [unrecognized word] old
Gainor Wynne and that exquisite French lady the mother.* I
have found myself thinking sadly that she was dead: we
must have a good talk about such a good live story as Hugh
Wynne! it is far and away the best thing going. I do
not get hold of the Martian* yet and

[ Up the left margin of page 3 ]

it seems so tired – I can somehow always see our
Maurices* tired kind face over his book

[ Page 4 ]

Mrs. Fields* is better and sits up quite gallantly
by the fire for a good bit of the day. I try to make life
so enchanting in this state of health that she will forget about
going down stairs.

Notes

November 1896: This date is based
upon Jewett's apparent reference to Weir Mitchell's "new story,"
which began to appear in serial in November 1896, and upon her
not yet knowing of the death of Du Maurier.

unknown recipient: The Maine Woman Writers
Collection groups this letter with others from Jewett to Dr.
Weir Mitchell, but this text seems clearly about him in
part. While Jewett could have written to Mitchell
himself in this way, that would not be characteristic of her
work.

Dr Weir Mitchells new story: For
Silas Weir Mitchell, see Correspondents.
His
new story, is Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker (1897), which
began appearing in serial in Century Magazine (53:1) in
November 1896, and continued through October 1897.

the Martian: George Du Maurier (1834
- 8 October 1896) was author of The Martian: A Novel,
which began to appear in serial in Harper's New Monthly
(93:557) in October and November of 1896, after which it was
discontinued, perhaps because of the author's death. The
completed novel was published posthumously in 1898.

our Maurices: Jewett presumably
refers to du Maurier, with whom she was friends. It
appears that when she composed this letter, she did not yet know
of du Maurier's death, of which she had learned by 9 November,
when she wrote to Ellen Chase.

The manuscript of this letter is held in the Sarah
Orne Jewett Papers, Maine Women Writer's Collection, University
of New England, Houghton Autograph File to S. Weir
Mitchell #1. Transcription by Linda Heller; annotation by
Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Ellen Chase

9 November, 1896, South
Berwick, Maine.

Dear Ellen Chase,* -- How very good of
you to send me these nice photographs of Whitby!* The face of
the old woman is really wonderful, with its eyes that have
watched the sea, -- indeed every one is interesting. I brought
home a good many in 1892,* and wished for more, -- but is it not
delightful that all these are new and different? I am very
grateful to you, dear, for such kind thought. I knew Whitby
first through Mr. Lowell,* who used to talk much about his
summers there: so that after he died, and I went there, the
place was full of memories of him. Do you know (of course, you
do) his letters about it in the Life that Mr. Norton edited?* I
am sorry to say that Mrs. Fields overlooked one, in sending her
letters to Mr. Norton, which is more beautiful than any: about
grey St. Hilda's Abbey and the red roofs of the old town.* And
now as I look back I remember also how I went about the streets
of Whitby with Mr. Du Maurier and his little dog, and one day I
heard the songs in "Peter Ibbetson,"* with their right tunes
sung by that charming voice that is silent now. So, with all
this, you see that pictures of Whitby mean a great deal to me.

I am very glad to have the photograph
of your own house. It looks as if it were old, and not new: it
looks as if it were not without a past and dear associations,
which is much to say of a new house. Some day -- oh, yes indeed!
-- I should like dearly to come and see it.

Yours very affectionately.

I wonder if you have not been reading
"Sir George Tressady,"* -- a really great and beautiful story as
I think. I care very much for it.

Notes

Ellen Chase: Note that Mary Ellen Chase (1887-1973)
was about nine years old when Jewett wrote her this letter.
See Correspondents.

Whitby: Wikipedia
says: "Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the
Borough of Scarborough and English county of North Yorkshire."

1892: Jewett and friends spent several months in
Europe during 1892, including a visit to Whitby.

Life that Mr. Norton edited: Charles Eliot Norton
(1827-1908) was co-editor of the North American Review
(1863-1868) and then professor of literature at Harvard
University. He and his daughters' summer home was in Ashfield.
He was the author of James Russell Lowell (1893) and the
editor of a number of Lowell's works.

St. Hilda's Abbey: also known as Whitby Abbey in
Whitby.

songs in "Peter Ibbetson": Peter Ibbetson
(1891), by George
DuMaurier (6 March 1834 - 8 October 1896) . Note that
Mr. DuMaurier had recently died when this letter was written.

Sir George Tressady: Mrs. Humphry Ward's Sir George
Tressady appeared in 1896. See Correspondents.

Your letter has been taking little journies and finds me here
at last! Oh how sorry I am to know of your illness
and how I wish that I could have done anything for you! If you
do not get on to Milton2 tomorrow please send me word
so that I can come to see you -- A. F. has been very poorly with
one of her bad colds -- going out one day and then getting
housed again. but I hope she is better now and you too --
(I am glad my Pointed Firs* were there if I myself were not,) I
wished to see you last week but I had two or three such
busy days and I could not get time before I went home. I think
you will be sure to "pick up" in Milton -- I have jus
just been out there to Annie Russell's wedding,3 and
it was so pleasent [so transcribed] and the air so fresh
& bright even if it was wintry. I shall be here for a week
or so now, and I count up on seeing you.

Yours most affectionately,

S. O. J.

Stoddart's Notes

1 Colby curators have dated this letter "12-1-96."

2 It is not clear whether Jewett refers to the
residential and manufacturing town in Norfolk county, eastern
Massachusetts, known for being the home of Milton Academy, a
private boy's school, or to Milton, Delaware, then a beach and
resort town.

3 This Annie Russell has not be identified.
It seems clear she is not Annie Russell Marble, for she married
in November 1890. See Correspondents.

Editor's Notes

Pointed Firs: It is unclear whether Jewett refers
to Dresel visiting the part of Maine where her novel, The
Country of the Pointed Firs, was set, or if Jewett refers
to a copy of the novel itself being in Dresel's possession.

The manuscript of this letter is in the collection of the Miller
Library of Colby College, Waterville, ME. The transcription
first appeared in Scott Frederick Stoddart's Ph.D. dissertation at
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected Letters
of Sarah Orne Jewett, copyright by Stoddart, 1988.
Annotation is by Stoddart, supplemented where appropriate by Terry
Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Thomas Bailey Aldrich

148 Charles Street,
Thursday morning

[ Early December 1896 ]*

My dear T.B.

I came to town yesterday and was going right to
59 Mount Vernon St.* with a copy of the Pointed Firs* under my arm
when what should I find but two books* from you to me, and
'T.L.'* read your note to say that you and Lilian* and the
Commodore were

[ Page 2 ]

on your way to Lakewood!* I feel very humble about my one book
(and its not being a poetry book either!) but I send it all the
same with much love. And I thank you for your two beautiful
copies of two beautiful poems: I shall read the Judith &
Holofernes the first quiet hour I get, but I do not need to wait
for anything more than

[ Page 3 ]

the hurried look I have had to say that it is beautiful -- We
didn't have the Apocrypha on the Hermione for nothing.

I read your Santo Domingo poem* with great
delight the other day and it seemed to have bloomed wider and
fairer than when I read it first. I shall always keep a
great sentiment of affection for it. I remember the day when you
told me the first last two

[ Page 4 ]

lines on the hurricane deck. Perhaps (this is a proud
thought) that other day when I banged across the deck in a high
sea may have crystallized your floating thoughts and shocked them
into ^imperishable^ form -- You may say that I was more likely to
scatter them! and that the excitement passed before we went to
Santo Domingo, but no matter. Give my love to Lily and to the
Commodore. I hope

[ Page 5 ]

that his cold will soon be well -- I have been waiting from week
to week to find the right time to ask you all to come to South
Berwick but it has been wet and dreary there and I did not wish to
deepen your impression of banging blinds. A.F. has been
spending a week with us -- and I counted upon the Hermione
party when she was there, but she had to fly to town unexpectedly

[ Page 6 ]

-- Tell the Commodore that I wonder if he hadn't
better get a hat like the Haytian gentleman's as he passes through
New York, if he thinks the shape of New York, being so long and
narrow, would give room for a proper brim! --

A.F. sends her love and thanks with mine -- she
has ^just^ got her new book* and you will be hearing from her.

Yours most affectionately

S. O. J.

Notes

November - December 1896: Jewett mentions two books
that appeared late in 1896. The letter must have been
composed before the death of Henry Pierce on 17 December, and
probably before his stroke on 14 December. See notes below.

59 Mount Vernon St.: The Aldriches Boston home.

Pointed Firs: Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs
was available in November 1896.

two books: As Jewett makes clear, one of the books Aldrich
gave Jewett was Judith and Holofernes: A Poem
(1896). Aldrich draws upon the Book of Judith, which Protestants place in
the Apocrypha, as a non-canonical biblical text. The widow,
Judith, delivers her Jewish people from their Assyrian conquerors
by gaining the trust of General Holofernes and then beheading
him.
Aldrich published The Works of Thomas
Bailey Aldrich in 8 volumes, two of which were poetry, in
1896, but Jewett does not mention multiple volumes.
Therefore, it seems more likely that he gave her Friar
Jerome's Beautiful Book, a selection of earlier poems, which
was issued in a limited edition of 250 copies.

T.L. A nickname for Annie Adams Fields; later in the
letter, she is A.F. See Correspondents.

Lakewood: In the 1890s, there was a popular resort at
Lakewood, New Jersey, but it is not certain that this was their
destination.

Santo Domingo poem: Aldrich's "Santo Domingo" recounts his
first sighting of the capital of the Dominican Republic after
"long days of angry sea and sky." As Jewett indicates, she
is well aware of the occasion of this poem, the storm-tossed cruise of the Caribbean the previous winter,
which included Jewett, Annie Fields, and the Aldriches as guests
of Henry L. Pierce, "the Commodore" on his steam yacht, the Hermione.
Though Jewett was not aware of this as
she wrote, Mr. Pierce was to suffer a stroke on 14 December. He
died on 17 December 1896. See Correspondents.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers,
119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich,
1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry
Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another
hand, is a circled number: 2750.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich to R. W. Gilder

Boston, Dec. 12, 1896.

Dear Gilder, --

I suppose that Woodberry has told you what a sad and anxious
household we have here. Mr. Pierce came in from Milton a week ago
last Thursday to pass three or four days with us, intending to go
to New York on Tuesday. On Monday morning he had a stroke of
paralysis, and has ever since been lying helpless in our house.
His situation is very serious. For nearly twenty-five years he has
been one of the most loved of guests at our fireside, and it takes
all our fortitude to face the fact that that wise and gentle and
noble heart has come to us for the last time. He is dimly
conscious, but cannot speak; his right side is completely
paralyzed. Should he, by a miracle, recover, he would never be
able to walk, and his mind would be partly gone. I am sure you
will be grieved to hear all this, for no one could be with him,
even for so short a time as you were last summer, without being
impressed by the sweetness and simplicity and integrity of his
character. When I think of the false and cruel men who are let
live, I don't understand the scheme which blots out such lives as
his. I would have given him ten or fifteen happy years more. In
haste.

Mr. Pierce: Henry L. Pierce (1825-1896), owner of
Baker Chocolate and a politician who, among other offices, served
as mayor of Boston, MA. The Aldriches, along with Jewett and
Annie Fields, were regular guests on the steam yacht, Hermione,
which Pierce owned during the last decade of his life.
Pierce died on 17 December. Wikipedia.

This transcription was published in Thomas Bailey Aldrich
(1908) by Ferris Greenslet, pp. 195-6.

SOJ to Annie Adams Fields

Wednesday 15 Decr1896

Dearest Annie

Such a dark day! and I dont like to think
of your going out to the Conference* but I suppose a dear
mouse* will prance there with all sails set -- I make this
confusion of figures on purpose -- it is so pleasing to think
of a mouse with sails !! Cousin Alice* is going today
after a nice visit so far as I can say for I always enjoy her
quiet serenity and dear old fashionedness, very much. Last
night we "had the minister to tea" -- so all social
opportunities [reached corrected ]

[ Page 2 ]

their height. Mr. & Mrs. Lewis* seemed
to enjoy themselves too -- I was at the Bank awhile in the
afternoon, and did some copying but beside running my errands to
the post office &c that was all (All the little sparrows are
out [ in or on ] the top of the porch looking in at me
with their little bright eyes!)

Carrie* went to Boston
yesterday and she meant to go to see you. Thank you for what you
did about Jennie's people.*

[ Page 3 ]

I wont tell her the reports if she doesn't begin
about them again -- unless they are good ones. ----- I suppose
things are going on pretty much the same. I am so glad you
didn't try to go yourself now -- for Everything you dont do
at this season seems to be wise!! I do so want to keep you from
getting more cold. Perhaps a little whiskey with your luncheon?
--You thought it was very good for you last year, when the

[ Page 4 ]

cold weather was setting in --

But I must write no more of this dull letter --
except to send my love. Mr. Howells's letter is quite
touching and Alice Warren's* writing was like seeing a ghost --
Now she is coming back to play! and I am always glad to play with
her.

Good bye darling Fuff*

from your

Pin*

Poor Marguerite Hall!* How touching how genuine her note
is! There is such deep & true feeling in it.

Notes

Conference: Presumably, this is a meeting of the
Associated Charities of Boston.

mouse: One of Jewett's nicknames for Annie Adams
Fields. See Correspondents.

Mr. & Mrs. Lewis: George Lothrop Lewis. See Correspondents.
Carrie: Carrie Jewett Eastman. See Correspondents.
Jennie's people: A Jennie is mentioned in a letter to Mary
Rice Jewett and Carrie Jewett Eastman of 12 July 1894. That letter
implies that Jennie is a household employee of Carrie and Ned
Eastman. See Correspondents.
It would seem likely that Jennie is an Irish immigrant, with
relatives in difficulty in Boston, where Fields could provide them
with some aid through Associated Charities.
Mr. Howells: William Dean Howells. See Correspondents.

Pin: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate
nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Correspondents.

Marguerite Hall: It seems likely this was Miss
Marguerite Hall, who appears in the Boston Musical Year Book (v. 1) Season of
1883-84, in numerous vocal and piano performances. While an
internet search finds her name in many performances in the United
States and abroad through the early 20th century, it yields as yet
no further information about her.

The sad news of our dear friends death* has
just reached me by the morning paper and I cant tell whether I am
most thankful for his going without any more suffering, or most
grieved because he has gone. I shall miss him dreadfully, for fond
as I have always been of him since I first knew him, all our
living together at sea in this last year has brought

[ 2 ]

me so much nearer to him, as it has brought me nearer to you
both. And I do feel your great sorrow with you as I believe
few of your friends can, so do take the love and sympathy I send
with all my heart.

I shall of course come up to the funeral and I
shall see you very soon. Please give my love to Bridget* and tell
her how quick I thought

[ 3 ]

of her when I first knew that dear Mr. Pierce had gone.

I cannot help thinking as I write of that dear
old fashioned hymn:

-- Earth's transitory joys decay
Its pomps its pleasures pass away:
But the sweet memory of the good
Survives in the vicissitude --*

Dear Lily you cant think how glad I am to have had that last look
sad as it made my heart. I wish that I were there to take a little
care of you now when you must be so outworn with sorrow and
watching. I send my

[ 4 ]

love and many a thought today to you and dear T.B. and the boys*
--

Always your affectionate

S.O.J.

Notes

friends death: As a note in another hand at the top of
page 1 indicates, this letter refers to the 17 December 1896 death
of Henry L. Pierce (see Correspondents),
a long-time friend and neighbor of the Aldrich family.
He died after a stroke that occurred on December 14.
Lilian and Thomas, along with Jewett and
Annie Fields, had spent most of the first three months of 1896
cruising the Caribbean in rough seas on Pierce's steam-yacht, the
Hermione.

Bridget: An Aldrich family employee who sailed with
the Hermione party.

vicissitude: Jewett quotes with slight variation the
opening verse of "Earth's Transitory Things Decay" with verse
by Sir John Bowring (1792-1872) and the tune, "Rothwell" composed
by William Tans'ur.

Earth's transitory things decay,
Its pomps, its pleasures pass away;
But the sweet memory of the good
Survives in the vicissitude.

boys: The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and Charles were
born in 1868.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers,
119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich,
1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry
Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another
hand, is a circled number: 2754.

SOJ to Louise Imogen Guiney

28 December 1896
South Berwick.
Maine.

Dear Louise

I think you so much for my Book and for your
most kind and dear remembrance. When I see you I shall
tell you how much I like it, the book, I mean now; if it were
your own I should read it first and write afterward. Which
is what I mean to do with this exquisite little handful of
(rose) leaves which comes from Alice Brown.* I wish you
would tell her if you see her or if you write. I can wait
to take the right hour (which one cannot always do with a book
that deserves justice) for I have forgotten her Pinckney Street
number and so I must wait to thank her also when I get back,
presently, to town.

There are many things I should like to talk
about with you and with her -- one is that this autumn I was off
for a weeks driving and I went to the Shaker houses at
Canterbury.* I have just been reading Sainte Beuve's Port
Royal and I hardly knew the difference between Mère Angelique
and Eldress Joanna Kaime with her white hood and stately old
head.* New England was going to do without somethings and
thought they were left behind, but human nature is too
strong. So we have monasteries but we call them Shaker
families! Oh there is much to tell about that day to which
you would both listen and wish you had been with me.

I hope that I shall see you soon -- Yours
affectionately,

Sarah O. Jewett

I hope that my Pointed Firs will remind you
of some shoreward pleasures.

Notes

Alice Brown: Four books by Alice Brown were
published in 1896, among them The Road to Castaly
which was dedicated to Louise Guiney. It would seem, however,
from Miss Jewett's remark that Louise had sent her The Rose
of Hope. The guide to the University
of
New Hampshire collection of Brown's papers says: "Alice
Brown was born in Hampton Falls, N.H. on December 5, 1857, the
daughter of Levi and Elizabeth (Lucas) Brown. She graduated from
the Robinson Seminary in Exeter, N.H. in 1876. Brown taught
school for five years in both New Hampshire and Boston, but
found she preferred editing to teaching. She worked on the
staffs of The Christian Register and Youth’s
Companion and by 1884 had begun her long career as a
writer of short stories, novels, and plays. She continued
publishing into the 1940s. Brown lived at 11 Pinckney Street,
Boston, and summered in Newburyport, Massachusetts and at her
farm in Hill, N.H. She died in Boston on June 21, 1948."

Canterbury: The Shaker Village mentioned in this
letter was located in Canterbury, New Hampshire, a small farming
town about twelve miles north-east of Concord. Miss Jewett
described a visit to the Canterbury Shakers in a letter to Annie
Fields dated "Thursday night, 1897." (Letters of Sarah Orne
Jewett, edited by Annie Fields, p. 134). Both letters, it seems,
refer to the same visit, and if this is so the date of the
letter to Annie Fields should read 1896. See Wikipedia.

Sainte Beuve's Port Royal ... Mère Angelique and Eldress
Joanna Kaime: Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804 -
1869,) "was a literary critic of French literature ... Port-Royal
(1837–1859), probably Sainte-Beuve's masterpiece, is an
exhaustive history of the Jansenist abbey of
Port-Royal-des-Champs, near Paris. It not only influenced the
historiography of religious belief, i.e., the method of such
research, but also the philosophy of history and the history of
esthetics" (Wikipedia).
"Jacqueline-Marie-Angélique Arnauld,
S.O.Cist. or Arnault, called La Mère Angélique (8 September 1591
in Paris – 6 August 1661) in Port-Royal-des-Champs), was Abbess
of the Abbey of Port-Royal, which under her abbacy became a
center of Jansenism" (Wikipedia).

Our community was deeply saddened
by the intelligence from East Canterbury of the death of
Eldress Joanna Kaime, on Dec. 29, of paresis. As
presiding Eldress in the ministry for nearly thirty years
she has in this capacity alternated in her home between
the society of Shakers at Enfield and that at East
Canterbury. She was truly a most estimable woman, of
exceeding loveliness and sweetness of character, true and
genuine in all the relations of life. None knew her
but to love her, not only in her own home, where the sweet
unselfishness of her life was best known, but many friends
and acquaintances outside the home circle could bear
witness to the saintly presence, which diffused blessing
and peace, to those privileged to come under the shadow of
her loving, gentle spirit. Although she had been in
failing health for two months no one apprehended the end
so near, until the final summons told us she had entered
into rest.

Pointed Firs: The Country of the Pointed Firs
(1896), has been described by Carlos Baker as Miss Jewett's
masterpiece.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Dinand Library of
Holy Cross College in the collection of materials of Louise
Imogen Guiney. The transcription by William L. Lucey, S.
J. appeared in "'We New Englanders': Letters of Sarah Orne
Jewett to Louise Imogen Guiney." Records of the American
Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 70 (1959):
58-64. In his transcription: "Words inserted above the
line by Miss Jewett have been lowered and bracketed; deleted
words have been bracketed and italicized or, when illegible, a
deletion has been indicated." Notes are by Lucey and
supplemented by Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Frederick M. Hopkins

South Berwick, Maine
December 29, 1896

My dear Mr. Hopkins:

I thank you for your kindness in
sending me the Review of Reviews for December, and for
all your friendliness in regard to the Pointed Firs.1
I am sure that you will like to know that it is doing
capitally well as to sales.

I think very well of your suggestion
in regard to Mrs. Thaxter's Among the Isles of Shoals.2
I mean to speak to Mr. Mifflin3 about it at once, and
I should be very glad if you would tell him what you think about
the matter. The House will soon settle upon next year's plans
and some things are of course already under weigh [so
transcribed].

With my best thanks and best New Year
wishes.

Yours very sincerely,

S. O. Jewett

I have in mind Mr. J. Appleton Brown
and Mr. Ross Turner4 for the illustrators, for they
both know the Islands so well -- are charming artists,
especially Mr. Brown, and were Mrs. Thaxter's intimate friends.

NOTES

1 Hamilton W. Mabie's
brief but laudatory critique of The Country of the Pointed
Firs ("shows her true and delicate art in all its quiet
and enduring charm") and a bust portrait of Miss Jewett appeared
in the year-end review of worthy books in Review of Reviews,
XIV(December 1896), 743.

2 Celia Thaxter wrote
this book (Boston, 1873) upon Whittier's insistence that she put
into print her engaging anecdotes and impressions of the scenes
and natives of these seaweed-encircled islands.

3 George Harrison Mifflin
(1845-1921), senior partner and, later, president of Houghton
Mifflin Company. His major functions were to make policy and
deal with the more important authors.

4 Ross Sterling Turner
(1847-1915) was a teacher of water color at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Normal Art School,
with studios in Boston and Salem from 1882 to the year of his
death. Mrs. Thaxter took lessons from him during the winters
when she lived in Boston and arranged for him to come to the
Isles of Shoals in the summer. She became fond of the young man,
called him her "grandson," and attended music concerts with him.
After he married, he built a studio on Appledore Island near
Mrs. Thaxter's cottage.
For J. Appleton Brown, see Correspondents.

This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah
Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby College Special
Collections, Waterville, Maine. Notes supplemented by
Terry Heller, Coe College.

SOJ to Lilian Woodman Aldrich

Tuesday 29th December [ 1896 ]

[ Begin letterhead ]

South Berwick.
Maine.

[ End letterhead ]

Dear Lilian

I have been meaning to send you the yacht
photograph but I believe that I had better bring it with me as
I am coming back in a few days now. I should hate to
have it get bent and broken in the careless mails! I
think of you a great deal and every day it seems to me that I
miss Mr Pierce* more. Just

[ 2 ]

[ intended now ? ] we are all being reminded
of our happy plans a year ago -- aren't we? -- how true it is
that one never knows a friend until he is gone -- never knows
him in the closest way -- it is as if we followed on a little
way and caught something of the new life.

-- I wish so much to see you and T.B.*
again; next week is my winter week to go to Mrs. Cabot's* so
that I shall be nearby, but I keep hoping that you will be
well enough to go to New York for your New Year visit. I
should

[ 3 ]

so hate to have you break into that dear custom, and if you
can only risk the journey I think it would be good for
you. I remember just after my mother died
A.F.* persuaded me to go away with her for a time and it was
a great pull at the time, but I was much better for it and
thanked her so much afterward . .

Dear Lily, there are so many things that
I wish to say but cannot write. I am hoping to see you
soon at any rate and I send my love and my new year blessing

Yours always. 'Sadie'*

[ 4 ]

I am so worried about A.F. sometimes.
Her winter cold seems worse than usual this year and she does
not seem a bit strong. I shall be so glad when January is over
-- that is always a hard month for her.

Notes

Mr. Pierce: Henry L. Pierce, who died 17 December
1896. See Correspondents.
Lilian and Thomas, along with Jewett
and Annie Fields, had spent most of the first three months of 1896
cruising the Caribbean in rough seas on Pierce's steam-yacht, the
Hermione.T.B.: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Correspondents.

A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Correspondents.
Jewett's mother died in October 1891.

Sadie: One of Jewett's nicknames. With the
Aldriches, this would have been Sadie Martinot, after the actress
of that name. See Correspondents.

The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers,
119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich,
1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry
Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another
hand, is a circled number: 2757.